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THE  QUEST  OF 
EL  DORADO 


BOOKS    BY    J.    A.    ZAHM 

(H.    J.     MOZANS) 

THE  QUEST  OF  EL  DORADO 

THROUGH       SOUTH       AMERICA'S 
SOUTHLAND 

UP    THE    ORINOCO    AND     DOWN 
THE    MAGDALENA 

ALONG  THE  ANDES  AND  DOWN 
THE  AMAZON 

WOMAN  IN  SCIENCE 
GREAT  INSPIRERS 


D.  APPLETON  AND  COMPANY,  NEW  YORK 


THE    QU  E  ST    OF 
EL    DORADO 

THE  MOST  ROMANTIC   EPISODE   IN  THE 
HISTORY  OF  SOUTH  AMERICAN  CONQUEST 


BY 

THE  REVEREND  J.  A.  ZAHM,  C.  S.C.,  PH.D. 

(H.  J.  MOZANS) 

MEMBER   OF  LA  SOCI^T^   FRANC AISE   DE   PHYSIQUE,   LA   SOCIETA  DANTESCA 
ITALIANA,  THE  ARCADIA   OF   HOME,  AND   OTHER   LEARNED   SOCIETIES 


"Where  can  it  be— this  land  of  El  Dorado?" 
"Over  the  mountains  of  the  moon, 
Down  the  Valley  of  the  Shadow." 

POE. 


ILLUSTRATED 


D.  APPLETON  AND  COMPANY 
NEW  YORK  LONDON 

1917 


COPYRIGHT,  1917,  BY 
D.  APPLETON  AND  COMPANY 


Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 


TO 
MY  CHERISHED  FRIENDS 

THE  GRADUATES  OF  HOLY  CROSS  COLLEGE 


WASHINGTON,  D.  C. 


"There  are  epochs  in  which  the  reason  is  be- 
wildered by  the  contemplation  of  new  and  un- 
usual objects.  And  even  the  most  clear-sighted 
man,  when  exposed  to  a  continuous  series  of  vio- 
lent impressions,  ceases  to  analyze  them  and  de- 
scends to  the  level  of  common  intelligences  which 
exaggerate  and  marvel  at  everything.  To  com- 
*ply  with  the  precepts  of  the  sage  nil  admirari,  one 
must  be  in  the  full  exercise  of  his  faculties  and 
have  acquired  a  certain  dominion  over  his  senses 
which  are  always  prone  to  bewitch  and  deceive 
him.  How  far  were  the  Conquistadores  of  Ameri- 
ca from  this  state  of  intellectual  calm?  For  them 
everything  was  matter  for  surprise.  The  spec- 
tacle of  a  new  world,  new  peoples,  new  customs, 
and,  more  than  all  else,  those  inexhaustible  foun- 
tains of  riches  which  gushed  forth  everywhere 
with  greater  rapidity  than  their  desire  to  possess 
them,  maintained  them  in  a  sweet  and  perpetual 
ecstasy.  Without  taking  opium,  like  the  Mussul- 
mans, they  experienced  the  same  sensations  from 
which  they  could  not  free  themselves  without  great 
effort."  PEDRO  DE  ANGELIS,  in  "Coleccion  de 
Obras  y  Documentos  Relatives  a  la  Historia  An- 
tigua y  Moderns  de  las  Provincias  del  Rio  de  la 
Plata."  Tom.  I,  p.  V. 


PREFACE 

This  little  volume  is  made  up  almost  entirely  of 
a  series  of  articles  which  I  wrote1  in  1912  for 
the  "Pan-American  Bulletin."  Since  then  so 
great  has  been  the  interest  excited  in  the  subject 
discussed,  especially  in  the  United  States  and 
South  America,  that  I  have  frequently  been  urged 
to  republish  the  articles  in  book-form.  They  now 
appear  with  a  few  changes  and  additions  and  will, 
I  trust,  be  found  an  acceptable  contribution,  brief 
though  it  is,  on  what  is  undoubtedly  the  most 
thrilling  and  romantic  episode  in  the  entire  range 
of  South  American  history.  Only  one  other  epi- 
sode at  all  approaches  it  in  fascinating  interest 
and  that  relates  to  those  countless  expeditions 
which,  as  I  have  written  in  my  recent  work 
"Through  South  America's  Southland,"  "started 
almost  simultaneously  from  Buenos  Aires,  from 
Cordoba,  from  Valdivia,  from  Chiloe,  all  of  them 
with  the  knowledge  of  the  King  of  Spain,  the 
Viceroy  of  Peru,  and  the  governors  of  Chile  and 
Rio  de  la  Plata — expeditions  which  during  nearly 

1  Under  the  pseudonym  of  J.  A.  Manso. 
vii 


viii  PREFACE 

two  and  a  half  centuries  scoured  the  whole  of  the 
continent  from  the  Pilcomayo  to  the  Strait  of  Ma- 
gellan in  search  of  that  fabulous  Ciudad  Encan- 
tada  de  los  Ccesares — The  Enchanted  City  of  the 
Cassars — a  city  which  according  to  the  sworn 
statements  of  those  who  pretended  to  have  been 
in  it,  was  as  vast  and  as  rich  as  Nineveh  of  old, 
and  greater  in  area  than  Pekin  or  London — a  city 
that  held  within  its  carefully  fortified  walls  all 
the  delights  of  Eden  and  all  the  wonders  of  the 
New  Jerusalem." 

That  the  reader  may  better  understand  what 
were  the  views  of  the  contemporaries  of  the 
Doradoists  respecting  the  country  which  Belalca- 
zar,  the  Quesadas,  von  Hutten,  Berrio  and  Ra- 
leigh traversed  and  the  strange  Aborigines  with 
whom  they  came  in  contact  in  their  quest  of  the 
Gilded  Man  and  the  famed  city  of  Manoa,  I  have 
illustrated  the  narrative  with  a  number  of  en- 
gravings from  the  early  publications  of  De  Bry, 
Colijn  and  Got'tfriedt — engravings  which  the 
people  of  the  time  were  led  to  believe  were  perfect 
representations  of  the  objects  portrayed.  And 
following  the  indications,  often  very  vague  and 
unsatisfactory,  of  the  early  chroniclers,  I  have 
endeavored  to  trace  the  routes  followed  by  the 
divers  expeditions  in  the  futile  search  of  that 


PREFACE  ix 

fantastic,  and  ever-vanishing  ignis  fatuus  which 
cost  Spain  thousands  of  lives  and  millions  of 
treasure.  But  it  will  be  impossible  for  the  reader, 
guided  solely  by  the  maps  and  the  narrative,  to 
form  an  adequate  idea  of  the  dangers  incurred 
and  the  difficulties  surmounted  by  the  Doradoists 
during  their  long  wanderings  over  snow-clad 
mountains  and  through  trackless  and  swampy 
wildernesses  whose  sole  inhabitants  were  indigent, 
and  frequently  hostile,  savages.  Only  those  who 
have  traversed  the  regions  visited  by  the  dauntless 
adventurers  who  took  part  in  the  expeditions  de- 
scribed in  the  following  pages  can  fully  realize  the 
magnitude  of  the  task  which  they  essayed,  how 
heroically  they  served  the  Spanish  Crown  in  the 
colonization  of  the  vast  regions  which  they  so 
thoroughly  explored  and  how  greatly  they  made 
modern  historians  their  debtors  by  the  knowledge 
which  they  handed  down  to  us  respecting  the  man- 
ners and  customs  of  many  of  the  aboriginal  tribes 
which  long  since  have  been  extinct. 

THE  AUTHOR. 
On-the-Hudson, 
Riverside  Drive, 

New    York. 
April  21,  1917. 


CONTENTS 


I.     CHIEF   SOURCES   OF   INFORMATION    RE- 
SPECTING  EL   DORADO      ....          1 
II.     EXPEDITION   OF   SEBASTIAN   DE    BELAL- 
CAZAR:     CONFLICTING   REPORTS  RE- 
GARDING EL  DORADO        ....          9 
III.     EXPEDITIONS  OF  GONZALO  PIZARRO  AND 

FRANCISCO   DE   ORELLANA      ...        37 
IV.     EXPEDITIONS    OF     FERNAN     PEREZ    DE 

QuESADA    AND    PHILIP    VON    HuTTEN          51 

V.     EXPEDITIONS     OF     PEDRO     DE     URSUA, 
MARTIN  DE  PROVEDA  AND  PEDRO  DE 

SILVA 72 

VI.     EXPEDITION   OF   GONSALO   XIMENES   DE 

QUESADA 87 

VII.     EXPEDITIONS    OF    ANTONIO  DE  BERRIO, 
THE  FRANCISCAN  LAY  BROTHERS  AND 

.  NUFLO  DE  CHAVES 110 

VIII.     EXPEDITION  OF  SIR  WALTER  RALEIGH  .      140 
IX.     PERSISTENCE  OF  BELIEF  IN  EL  DORADO     190 
X.     REASONS  FOR  THE   PERSISTENT  BELIEF 

IN  EL  DORADO 201 

XI.     MODERN  DORADOISTS       .     ...     .      .      .     216 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 


PAGE 


The  Adelantado,  Sebastian  de  Belalcazar    .  11 

Blowing  gold  dust  on  an  Indian  chieftain     .      .  15 

Lake  Guatavita 19 

The  Cacique  of  Guatavita  on  a  balsa       ...  23 
Route  followed  by  Sebastian  de  Belalcazar  in 

quest  of  El  Dorado 33 

Climbing  the  Andes  in  a  downpour  ....  39 

Routes  followed  in  the  quest  of  El  Dorado      .  53 

Primitive  means  of  navigation 61 

Amazons  practicing  archery  on  their  prisoners 

and  preparing  to  roast  their  victims      .      .  67 

Routes  followed  in  the  quest  of  El  Dorado      .  77 

The  Licentiate,  Gonsalo  Ximines  de  Quesada   .  91 

Juan  de  Castellanos 95 

Struggling  through  a  tropical  forest  in  the  low- 
lands     99 

Coat  of  mail  and  spur  of  Gonsalo  Ximines  de 

Quesada 105 

Route  followed  by  Antonio  de  Berrio  in  quest 

of  El  Dorado Ill 

Reputed  scene  at  Manoa  or  Dorado  .      .      .      .  117 
xiii 


xiv  LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

Indians  near  Manoa  smelting  and  casting  gold  123 

Spanish  soldiers  put  to  death  by  the  Indians      .  129 

Route  followed  by  the  Franciscan  Lay  Brothers  135 

Sir  Walter  Raleigh     .    V    v      *;    •      •      •      •  141 
Route  followed  by  Sir  Walter  Raleigh  in  quest 

of  El  Dorado       .      . 149 

The  burning  of  St.  Joseph  by  Sir  Walter  Ral- 
eigh    ...........  153 

Raleigh  going  up  the  Orinoco 157 

Houses  of  the  Indians  on  the  lower  Orinoco      .  161 
Section  of  Raleigh's  map  of  Guiana       .      .      .  167 
Anomaia  Indians  supplying  Raleigh  with  provi- 
sions   ...........  171 

The  Epwaipanomas     ........  177 

Strange  customs  of  the  Tinitinas      .      .      .      .  181 

Map  of  Guiana  by  Theodore  de  Bry      .      .      .  187 

A  reported  scene  on  the  Spanish  Main     .      .  191 

Spaniards  seeking  gold    .      ....      .      .      .  195 

Some  of  the  strange  animals  of  the  New  World  205 

Facsimile  signature  of  Friar  Gaspar  Carvajal  211 

Facsimile  signature  of  Francisco  de  Orellana  .  229 


THE  QUEST  OF 
EL  DORADO 


THE   QUEST   OF 
EL   DORADO 

CHAPTER  I 

CHIEF    SOURCES    OF     INFORMATION    RE- 
SPECTING EL  DORADO 

DURING  a  year's  wanderings  in  Andean 
lands  and  in  the  valleys  of  the  Amazon  and 
the  Orinoco  I  was  frequently  reminded  of 
the  numerous  expediti3ns  that  centuries  ago 
went  in  quest  of  that  extraordinary  will-o'- 
the-wisp,  usually  known  as  El  Dorado — the 
Gilded  King.  Whether  gliding  down  a 
Peruvian  river  in  a  dugout  or  traversing  in 
the  saddle  the  llanos  of  Venezuela  and  the 
lofty  tablelands  of  Colombia,  I  found  my- 
self following  the  courses  pursued  by  those 

1 


THE  QUEST  OF  EL  DORADO 

intrepid  adventurers  who  while  seeking  a 
phantom  did  so  much  toward  exploring  that 
vast  region  of  mountain  and  plain  which  lies 
between  the  Equator  and  the  Caribbean.  At 
one  time  I  was  in  the  footsteps  of  Gonzalo 
Pizarro  and  Von  Hutten,  at  another  in  the 
wake  of  Ursua  and  Orellana.  Now  I  was 
following  the  course  taken  by  Belalcazar  and 
his  eager  band,  as  they  hurried  across  the 
Cordilleras  in  pursuit  of  the  Gilded  King; 
anon  I  was  pushing  my  way  through  the 
dense  and  tangled  forests  which  had  been 
traversed  by  Ximenes  de  Quesada  and  his 
sturdy  men,  when  in  search  of  the  great  and 
peerless  capital  of  the  Omaguas;  and  still 
again  I  was  sailing  on  the  tawny  waters  of 
the  Casanare  and  the  Orinoco,  which  had 
witnessed  the  mad  race  of  the  fleets  of  An- 
tonio de  Berrio  and  Sir  Walter  Raleigh  for 
the  golden  city  of  Manoa — for  that 

Imperial  El  Dorado,  roofed  with  gold; 

Shadows  to  which,  despite  all  shocks  of  change, 

2 


SOURCES  OF  INFORMATION 

All  onset  of  capricious  accident, 

Men  clung  with  yearning  hope  which  would  not  die. 

And  yet,  strange  as  it  may  seem,  little  is 
known  about  these  expeditions  that  at  one 
time  commanded  such  universal  attention 
in  both  the  New  and  the  Old  World,  and 
which  for  the  historian  still  constitute  the 
most  romantic  episode  of  the  conquest  of 
South  America.  One  reason  for  this  lies  in 
the  fact  that  the  most  authentic  and  elabo- 
rate accounts  of  these  stirring  enterprises 
are  to  be  found  only  in  the  old  Spanish 
chronicles,  some  of  which  are  comparatively 
rare,  while  others,  forgotten  or  unknown, 
have  for  centuries  been  buried  in  the  dusty 
archives  of  Spain  and  Peru  and  have  only  re- 
cently been  given  to  the  press. 

Among  the  most  important  of  these 
chronicles  are  the  "Noticias  Historiales,"  of 
Fray  Pedro  Simon,  a  learned  Franciscan 
friar,  who  wrote  nearly  three  centuries  ago, 
while  some  of  the  Conquistadores  were  still 

3 


THE  QUEST  OF  EL  DORADO 

living  and  while  the  memory;  of  the  events 
connected  with  the  first  expeditions  in  quest 
of  El  Dorado  was  still  fresh  in  the  minds  of 
many  of  the  survivors.  Of  scarcely  less 
value  are  the  "Elegias  de  Varones  Ilustres 
de  Indias"  and  the  "Historia  del  Nuevo 
Reino  de  Granada,"  by  Juan  de  Castellanos, 
the  poet-priest  and  historian  of  the  conquest, 
who  had  served  with  distinction  under  Xim- 
enes  de  Quesada  in  his  celebrated  campaign 
against  the  Muiscas  and  who  knew  person- 
ally many  of  the  most  celebrated  of  the  ad- 
venturers who  had  taken  part  in  the  search 
for  the  Gilded  King  on  the  plateau  of  Cun- 
dinamarca  and  in  the  sultry  lowlands  of  the 
Meta  and  the  Guaviare.  But  the  "Historia 
del  Nuevo  Reino  de  Granada,"  of  Castella- 
nos, which  contains  the  most  graphic  account 
of  Ximenes  deQuesada's  expedition  in  quest 
of  El  Dorado,  was  not  published  until  1886. 
Similarly  the  manuscript  containing  the 
authentic  narrative  of  Ursua's  expedition  to 

4 


SOURCES  OF  INFORMATION 

Omagua  and  Dorado  by  Francisco  Vasquez, 
who  was  one  of  the  participants  in  the  enter- 
prise, remained  in  manuscript  until  it  was 
published  by  the  "Society  of  Spanish  Bib- 
liophiles" less  than  a  third  of  a  century  ago. 
What,  however,  is  still  more  remarkable,  is 
the  fact  that  the  original  Relation  of  Gon- 
zalo  Pizarro's  expedition  in  quest  of  the 
Gilded  King — an  expedition  which  is  con- 
sidered by  some  as  the  first  of  that  long  se- 
ries of  phantom-chases  in  which  so  many 
lives  and  so  much  treasure  were  sacrificed, 
was  not  published  until  1894,  more  than 
three  and  a  half  centuries  after  it  had  been 
penned  by  its  accomplished  author,  the 
Dominican,  Fray  Gaspar  de  Carvajal,  who 
was  at  first  the  chaplain  of  Pizarro  and  sub- 
sequently that  of  Orellana,  the  immortal  dis- 
coverer of  the  Amazon. 

But  although  these  and  similar  invalu- 
able works  bearing  on  the  expeditions  in 
quest  of  the  Gilded  King  have  appeared 

5 


THE  QUEST  OF  EL  DORADO 

in  Spanish,  comparatively  little  of  the  in- 
formation contained  in  them  has  yet  made 
its  way  into  English.  This  explains  the 
numerous  errors  that  are  found  in  what  has 
hitherto  been  written  on  the  subject  and 
why  many  adventurers  like  Antonio  Sedeno, 
Diego  de  Ordaz,  Nicolas  Federmann,  and 
others  of  their  contemporaries  are  classed 
among  those  who  sought  for  El  Dorado 
when,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  these  treasure- 
seekers  had  not  even  heard  of  this  mythical 
personage.  To  the  earlier  adventurers,  like 
those  just  named,  the  auri  sacri  fames — the 
accursed  thirst  for  gold — was  indeed  as 
strong  a  lure  as  it  was  to  their  successors, 
but  they  confined  their  operations  chiefly  to 
rifling  the  temples  and  cemeteries  of  the 
aborigines  or  to  seeking  a  certain  Casa  del 
Sol — temple  of  the  sun — that  was  supposed 
to  exist  somewhere  east  of  the  Andes,  pre- 
sumably in  the  valley  of  the  Meta. 

It  is  a  pity  that  those  who  love  the  curi- 
6 


SOURCES  OF  INFORMATION 

ous  and  romantic  phases  of  history  have 
not  given  more  attention  to  the  interesting 
episode  of  El  Dorado.  An  exhaustive  and 
authoritative  work  on  the  subject,  one  which 
shall  embody  the  results  of  the  most  recent 
researches  in  Spain  and  Latin  America,  is 
certainly  a  desideratum  in  the  history  of  the 
conquest  and  exploration  of  the  northern 
portion  of  our  sister  continent.  For  the 
years  devoted  to  the  quest  of  the  Gilded 
King  were  not  only  "years  crowded  with 
incident,  streaked  with  tragedy,  stained  by 
crime,  darkened  by  intrigue,"  but  they  were 
also  years  during  which  the  amazing  au- 
dacity, the  matchless  prowess,  and  the  thrill- 
ing heroism  of  the  Conquistadores  were  seen 
at  their  best.  And  the  study  of  these  years 
will  show  that  the  prime  mover  of  the  Span- 
iards in  their  extraordinary  adventures  was 
not  a  thirst  for  gold,  as  is  so  often  asserted, 
but  a  love  of  glory  and  a  sense  of  patriotism 
which  impelled  them  to  make  sacrifices  and 

7 


THE  QUEST  OF  EL  DORADO 

to  undertake  enterprises  before  which  even 
the  bravest  men  of  our  degenerate  age  would 
recoil  with  horror.  So  marvelous,  indeed, 
were  their  achievements  that,  were  they  not 
attested  by  the  most  unquestionable  of  docu- 
ments, we  should  be  disposed  to  place  the 
old  chronicles  which  describe  them  in  the 
same  category  as  the  Arthurian  romances, 
and  to  regard  the  exploits  of  some  of  the 
members  of  the  chief  expeditions  as  no  more 
deserving  of  credence  than  the  glorifying 
myths  of  El  Cid  Campeador.  Even  today, 
as  he  slowly  pursues  his  lonely  course 
through  the  dark  forests  which  fringe  the 
Orinoco  and  the  Amazon,  or  scales  the  pre- 
cipitous flanks  of  the  lofty  Cordilleras,  the 
traveler  feels  the  spell  of  romance  and  can 
easily  dream  of  the  gorgeous  capitals  and 
mighty  empires,  whose  glamour  in  days  gone 
by  proved  such  an  attraction  to  thousands  of 
the  most  gallant  and  noble  spirits  of  the 
Spanish  conquest. 

8 


CHAPTER  II 

EXPEDITION  OF  SEBASTIAN  DE  BELALCA- 
ZAR.  CONFLICTING  REPORTS  REGARD- 
ING EL  DORADO 

IT  was  in  1535  that  a  roving  Indian  first 
told  the  Spaniards  the  story  of  the  gilded 
chieftain  to  whom  they  forthwith  gave  the 
name  El  Dorado — the  Gilded  Man  or  King 
—a  name  which  was  subsequently  applied 
not  only  to  the  gilded  chief  himself,  but  also 
to  the  city  wherein  he  was  supposed  to  reside, 
and  to  the  province  over  which  he  bore  rule, 
and  to  the  lake  on  which  his  capital  was  said 
to  be  located.  At  that  time  Sebastian  de 
Belalcazar,  the  lieutenant  of  Francisco  Piz- 
arro,  was  in  Quito,  whither  he  had  gone  after 
his  victorious  campaign  against  the  generals 
of  Atahualpa,  and  here  it  was,  according  to 
Castellanos,  where — 


THE  QUEST  OF  EL  DORADO 

An  alien  Indian,  hailing  from  afar, 

Who  in  the  town  of  Quito  did  abide, 

And  neighbor  claimed  to  be  of  Bogata, 

There  having  come,  I  know  not  by  what  way, 

Did  with  him  speak  and   solemnly   announce 

A  country  rich  in  emeralds  and  gold. 

Also,  among  the  things  which  them  engaged, 
A  certain  king  he  told  of  who,  disrobed, 
Upon  a  lake  was  wont,  aboard  a  raft, 
To  make  oblations,  as  himself  had  seen, 
His  regal  form  o'erspread  with  fragrant  oil 
On  which  was  laid  a  coat  of  powdered  gold 
From  sole  of  foot  unto  his  highest  brow, 
Resplendent  as  the  beaming  of  the  sun. 

Arrivals  without  end,  he  further  said, 
Were  there  to  make  rich  votive  offerings 
Of  golden  trinkets  and  of  emeralds  rare 
And  divers  other  of  their  ornaments; 
And  worthy   credence   these   things   he   affirmed; 
The  soldiers,  light  of  heart  and  well  content, 
Then  dubbed  him  El  Dorado,  and  the  name 
By   countless   ways   was   spread   throughout   the 
world.1 

1  "Elejias   de  Varones   Ilustres  de  Indias/'  Parte 
III,  Canto  II,  Madrid  (1850). 

10 


From  Herrera's  "Historia  de  las  Indlas  Occidentales" 
THE  ADELANTADO,  SEBASTIAN  BELALCAZAK 
The  first  of  the  Conquistadores  to  go  in  search  of  the  Gilded  Man 


EXPEDITION— DE  BELALCAZAR 

According  to  the  chronicler,  Juan  Rodri- 
guez Fresle,  who  was  a  son  of  one  of  the 
Conquistadores  of  New  Granada,  the  lake 
on  which  were  made  these  offerings  of  gold 
and  emeralds,  was  Guatavita,  a  short  dis- 
tance to  the  northeast  of  Bogota.  And  the 
source  of  his  information  respecting  the  na- 
ture of  the  ceremonies  connected  with  these 
offerings  was,  he  assures  us,  no  less  than  one 
Don  Juan,  the  cacique  of  Guatavita,  who 
was  the  nephew  of  the  chief  who  bore  sway 
at  the  time  of  the  arrival  of  the  Spaniards 
under  Ximenes  de  Quesada,  and  who  was 
even  then  preparing  himself  by  a  six  years' 
fast  to  succeed  his  uncle  as  cacique  of  Gua- 
tavita. After  this  long  fast,  which  was  made 
under  the  most  trying  conditions,  the  suc- 
cessor to  the  caciqueship  was  obliged  to  go 
to  the  Lake  of  Guatavita  and  offer  sacrifice 
to  the  Devil,  who,  Fresle  informs  us,  was  re- 
garded by  the  aborigines  as  their  god  and 
master.  After  being  stripped,  he  was 
13 


THE  QUEST  OF  EL  DORADO 

anointed  with  a  viscous  earth,  which  was 
then  overspread  with  powdered  gold  in  such 
wise  that  the  chief  was  covered  with  this 
metal  from  head  to  foot.  He  was  then 
placed  on  a  balsa  provided  with  a  great 
quantity  of  gold  and  emeralds,  which  he  was 
to  offer  to  his  god.  Arriving  at  the  middle 
of  the  lake,  which  was  surrounded  by  a  vast 
multitude  of  men  and  women,  shouting  and 
playing  on  musical  instruments  of  various 
kinds,  he  made  his  offering  by  throwing  in- 
to the  lake  all  the  treasure  which  he  had  at 
his  feet.  After  this  ceremony  was  over,  he 
returned  to  the  shore  where,  amid  acclama- 
tions, music  and  rejoicing,  he  was  received 
as  their  legitimate  lord  and  prince. 

"From  this  ceremony,"  our  author  con- 
tinues, "was  derived  that  name,  so  cele- 
brated, of  'El  Dorado/ — which  has  cost  so 
many  lives  and  so  much  treasure.  It  was 
in  Peru  that  this  name  'Dorado'  was  first 
heard.  Sebastian  de  Belalcazar,  having  met 
14 


From  De  Bry 

BLOWING  GOLD  DUST  ON  AN  INDIAN  CHIEFTAIN  AFTER  His 
BODY  HAD  BEEN  ANOINTED  WITH  BALSAM 


EXPEDITION— DE  BELALCAZAR 

near  Quito  an  Indian  from  Bogota,  who  told 
him  about  the  Gilded  Man  just  described, 
exclaimed  'Let  us  go  in  search  of  that  gilded 
Indian.'  "  2  Hence  the  report  of  El  Dorado 
was  spread  throughout  Castile  and  the  In- 
dies, and  Belalcazar  was  moved  to  go  in 
quest  of  him  as  he  did,  and  hence  also  the 
cause  of  that  celebrated  meeting  with  Que- 
sada  and  Federmann,  which  constitutes  one 
of  the  most  thrilling  and  dramatic  chapters 
in  the  history  of  the  conquest  of  New  Gra- 
nada.3 

1  am  aware  that  certain  recent  writers  on 
El  Dorado  are  disposed  to  give  slight  cre- 
dence to  Fresle's  account  of  the  Gilded  Man, 
and  that,  following  the  indications  of  a  spe- 
cious theory,  they  attach  little,  if  any,  more 

2  "Conquista  i  Descubrimiento  del  Nuevo  Reino  de 
Granada  de  las  Indias  Occidentals  del  Mar  Oceano 
i  Fundacion  de  la  Ciudad  de  Santa  Fe  de  Bogota." 
Cap.  II,  Bogota  (1859.) 

3  See  the  Author's  "Up  the  Orinoco  and  Down  the 
Magdalena/'  p.  294  et  seq.     New  York  (1909). 

17 


THE  QUEST  OF  EL  DORADO 

value  to  the  statements  of  Castellanos  and 
Padre  Simon,  who,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  are 
our  chief  and  best  authorities  on  this  inter- 
esting topic.  The  quotation  above  given 
from  Juan  de  Castellanos  they  characterize 
as  a  mere  poetical  fancy.  Holding  such 
views,  they  naturally  find  fault  with  Hum- 
boldt  for  having  spread  broadcast  the  er- 
ror, as  they  regard  it,  concerning  the  con- 
nection between  El  Dorado  and  Lake  Gua- 
tavita — an  error,  they  assert,  into  which  the 
great  German  savant  was  led  by  conceding 
undue  authority  to  what  the  historian  of 
Granada,  Bishop  Piedrahita,  writes  on  the 
subject.4  Plausible  as  they  are,  however,  the 

4  Cf.  "El  Dorado,  Aus  der  Geschichte  der  ersten 
Amerikanischen  Endeckungs-Reisen.  Separat-Aus- 
druck  aus  den  Mittleilungen  der  Geographischen 
Gesellschaft  in  Hamburg"  (18*89)  ;  "Historia  General 
de  las  Conquistas  del  Nuevo  Reino  de  Granada,"  Lib. 
VI,  Cap.  Ill,  por  D.  Lucas  Piedrahita,  Antwerp 
(1688) ;  "The  Gilded  Man,"  by  A.  F.  Bandelier,  New 
York  (1893);  "Personal  Narrative  of  Travels  to  the 
Equinoctial  Regions  of  America  during  the  Years 

18 


•  ' 


LAKE  GUATAVITA 

Showing  the  cut  made  by  Sepulveda,  a  rich  merchant  of  Bogota, 
who  in  1562  received  from  Philip  II  a  concession  to  drain 
the  lake  in  order  to  secure  the  great  treasures  supposed  to 
exist  at  the  bottom.  Quite  recently  an  English  company 
having  a  concession  from  the  Colombian  Government  suc- 
ceeded in  completely  draining  the  lake  and  found  the  bottom 
covered  with  a  deposit  of  mud  about  3  meters  in  thickness. 
It  will  be  necessary  to  carefully  wash  this  in  order  to  de- 
termine what  treasures,  if  any,  are  contained  in  it.  According 
to  the  latest  report  available,  only  a  few  beads,  ceramic  and 
gold  objects  have  so  far  been  found.  The  lake  is  almost  cir- 
cular in  outline,  with  a  diameter  of  about  300  meters,  and 
was.  at  the  time  of  the  Conquistadores,  about  50  meters  in 
depth. 


EXPEDITION— DE  BELALCAZAR 

reasons  of  these  writers  for  rejecting  the 
testimony  of  such  veracious  and  conscien- 
tious chroniclers  as  Fresle,  Padre  Simon, 
Castellanos,  and  Piedrahita  are  far  from 
conclusive,  and  most  readers  who  will  take 
the  trouble  to  consult  what  these  four  writ- 
ers have  to  say  on  the  matter  in  question 
will,  I  think,  agree  with  Humboldt  and  be 
satisfied  that  the  accounts  given  of  El  Do- 
rado by  the  early  chroniclers  named  are 
founded  on  facts  that  can  not  be  gainsaid. 
The  fact  that  only  a  few  years  after  the 
arrival  of  Belalcazar  at  Bogota,  the  Span- 
iards began  to  make  efforts  to  secure  the 
gold  and  precious  stones  which,  according 
to  tradition,  had  been  cast  into  the  sacred 
Lake  of  Guatavita  by  the  Gilded  King,  is 
evidence  that  the  statements  of  Fresle  and 
other  contemporary  writers  regarding  the 
connection  between  this  lake  and  El  Dorado 

1799-1804,"  by  Alexander  von  Humboldt  and  Aime 
Bonpland,  Vol.   Ill,  Chap.  XXV,   Bohn  edition. 

21 


THE  QUEST  OF  EL  DORADO 

are  substantially  true.  For  more  than  three 
centuries  many  attempts  were  made  to  drain 
the  lake,  with  a  view  to  securing  the  price- 
less treasures  which  were  supposed  to  be 
spread  over  its  bottom,  but  the  success  which 
attended  the  efforts  of  those  who  had  the 
matter  in  charge  was  only  partial.  There 
were  never  sufficient  funds  available  to  com- 
plete the  work  of  drainage  until  a  few  years 
ago,  when  the  attempt  was  again  made  by 
some  Englishmen,  who  are  still  engaged  in 
the  undertaking.  But  a  number  of  gold 
objects  were  found,  among  them  some  in- 
teresting figurines,  which  confirmed  many 
people  in  the  belief  which  they  had  before 
entertained  regarding  the  existence  of  un- 
told amounts  of  gold  and  precious  stones  at 
the  bottom  of  the  lake,  the  offerings  of  El 
Dorado  to  his  god  before  the  Spanish  Con- 
quest, and  which  convinced  them  of  the 
accuracy  of  the  accounts  of  the  early  chron- 
iclers regarding  the  ceremonies  performed 
22 


THE  CACIQUE  OF  GUATAVITA,  SURROUNDED  BY  INDIAN  PRIESTS,  ON 
A  BALSA  WHICH  CONDUCTED  HIM,  ON  THE  DAY  OP  OBLATION, 
TO  THE  MIDDLE  OP  THE  LAKE 

This  object  is  made  of  gold,  weighs  262  grams,  and  measures  9% 
centimeters  in  diameter.  It  was  found  in  Lake  Siecha,  some 
miles  distant  from  Lake  Guatavita,  and  is  in  the  possession  of 
a  gentleman  of  Bogota. 


EXPEDITION— DE  BELALCAZAR 

here   centuries    ago,    in   which   the    Gilded 
Man  was  the  chief  actor.5 

According  to  Padre  Gumilla  the  word 
"Dorado"  had  a  different  origin  from  that 
assigned  by  Fresle  and  Castellanos.  It 
originated,  declares  this  writer,  on  the  Carib- 
bean Coast  near  Cartagena  and  Santa  Mar- 
ta,  whence  it  passed  to  Velez  and  thence  to 
Bogota.  When  the  Spaniards  reached  the 
elevated  plain  of  Cundinamarca,  they 
learned  that  "El  Dorado  was  in  the  pleasant 
and  fertile  valley  of  Sogamoso."  On  reach- 

5  Special  mention  should  here  be  made  of  a  most 
interesting  find  made  in  1856  in  Lake  Siecha,  a  small 
body  of  water  near  Lake  Guatavita.  It  consists  of  a 
small  group  of  figures  of  men  on  a  raft,  all  of  gold, 
and  weighing  268  grams,  which,  in  the  opinion  of 
competent  archeologists,  represents  El  Dorado  on  a 
rush  balsa  surrounded  by  his  priests  as  he  proceeded 
to  the  center  of  Lake  Guatavita  to  offer  sacrifice  to 
his  god.  See  "El  Dorado — Estudio  Historico,  Etno- 
grafico  y  Arqueologico  de  los  Chibchas,  Habitantes 
de  la  Antigua  Cundinamarca,"  p.  11,  por  Dr.  Liborio 
Zerda,  Bogota  (1883). 

25 


THE  QUEST  OF  EL  DORADO 

ing  this  place  they  found  that  the  priest  who 
made  his  oblation  in  the  great  temple  there 
was  wont  to  anoint  at  least  his  hands  and 
face  with  a  certain  kind  of  resin  over  which 
powdered  gold  was  blown  through  a  hollow 
reed  or  cane.  From  this  circumstance  the 
famous  "Dorado"  took  his  name.6 

Those  who  reject  the  accounts  above  given 
regarding  El  Dorado  declare  that  the  first 
authentic  information  we  have  of  him  is 
contained  in  a  letter,  dated  January  20, 
1543,  of  Gonzalo  Fernando  de  Oviedo  y 
Valdes  to  Cardinal  Bembo,  in  Venice.  This 
letter  refers  to  the  celebrated  expedition  of 
Gonzalo  Pizarro  to  the  land  of  Canela— 
cinnamon — which  was  on  the  eastern  versant 
of  the  Cordilleras  and  but  a  few  days'  jour- 
ney from  Quito.  The  ostensible  object  of 
the  expedition,  as  announced  by  Pizarro, 

6  "Historia  Natural,  Civil  y  Geografica  de  las 
Naciones  Situadas  en  las  Riveras  del  Rio  Orinoco," 
Tom.  I,  Cap.  XXV,  3,  Barcelona  (1791). 

26 


EXPEDITION— DE  BELALCAZAR 

was  to  find  the  region  which  was  reputed  to 
be  as  rich  in  aromatic  shrubs  and  trees  as 
the  spice  islands  of  the  Orient.  If  this  could 
be  found  the  fortunes  of  the  leader  and  his 
companions  would  be  assured,  and  Spain 
would  be  independent  of  her  hated  rival, 
Portugal,  which  then  had  a  monopoly  of 
cinnamon  and  other  precious  spices.  But 
the  real  object  was  not  so  much  the  discovery 
and  conquest  of  the  land  of  Canela7  as  the 
quest  of  a  great  and  powerful  prince  who 
was  called  El  Dorado.8 

"When  I  ask,  [writes  Oviedo]  why  they 
call  this  prince  the  Gilded  Cacique  or  King, 

7  Cinnamon    is    actually    found   in    this    and    other 
parts  of  tropical  America,,  but  it  belongs  to  a  differ- 
ent genus  from  that  of  Ceylon,  which  supplies  the 
well-known  article  of  commerce. 

8  Gon9alo    Pi9arro,   determino   de   yr   a   buscar   la 
canela  e  a  un  gran  principe,  que  llaman  El  Dorado, 
de  la  requeca  del  qual  hay  mucha  fama  in  aquellas 
partes.     "Historia  General  y  Natural  de  las  Indias, 
Islas  Y  Tierra   Firme  del  Mar  Oceano/'   Tom.   IV, 
Lib.  XLIX,  Cap.  II,  Madrid  (1851). 

27 


THE  QUEST  OF  EL  DORADO 

the  Spaniards  who  have  been  in  Quito  or 
have  come  to  Santo  Domingo — and  there 
are  at  present  more  than  ten  of  them  in  this 
city — make  reply  that  from  what  they  hear 
respecting  this  from  the  Indians,  this  great 
lord  or  prince  goes  about  continually  cov- 
ered with  gold  as  finely  pulverized  as  fine 
salt.  For  it  seemeth  to  him  that  to  wear  any 
other  kind  of  apparel  is  less  beautiful,  and 
that  to  put  on  pieces  or  arms  of  gold 
stamped  or  fashioned  by  a  hammer  or  other- 
wise is  to  use  something  plain  or  common, 
like  that  which  is  worn  by  other  rich  lords 
and  princes  when  they  wish ;  but  that  to  pow- 
der oneself  with  gold  is  something  strange, 
unusual,  and  new  and  more  costly,  because 
that  which  one  puts  on  in  the  morning  is  re- 
moved and  washed  off  in  the  evening  and 
falls  to  the  ground  and  is  lost.  And  this  he 
does  every  day  in  the  year.  While  walking 
clothed  and  covered  in  this  manner  his  move- 
ments are  unimpeded,  and  the  graceful  pro- 
28 


EXPEDITION— DE  BELALCAZAR 

portions  of  his  person,  on  which  he  greatly 
prides  himself,  are  seen  in  beauty  unadorned. 
I  would  rather  have  the  chamber  besom  of 
this  prince  than  the  large  gold  smelters  in 
Peru,  or  in  any  other  part  of  the  world. 
Thus  it  is  that  the  Indians  say  that  this 
cacique,  or  king,  is  very  rich  and  a  great 
lord,  and  anoints  himself  every  morning  with 
a  very  fragrant  gum  or  liquor  and  over  this 
ointment  he  sprinkles  powdered  gold  of  the 
requisite  fineness,  and  his  entire  person  from 
the  sole  of  his  foot  to  his  head  remains  cov- 
ered with  gold,  and  as  resplendent  as  a  piece 
of  gold  polished  by  the  hand  of  a  great  arti- 
ficer. And  I  believe,  if  this  cacique  uses  this, 
that  he  must  have  very  rich  mines  of  a  simi- 
lar quality  of  gold,  because  I  have  seen  much 
in  tierra  firme  of  the  kind  called  by  the  Span- 
iards volador,  and  so  fine  that  one  could  eas- 
ily do  with  it  what  is  above  stated."  9 

9  "Historia  General  y  Natural  de  las  Indias,"  Tom. 
IV,  p.  183. 

29 


THE  QUEST  OF  EL  DORADO 

From  the  foregoing  it  is  seen  that  there 
were  at  the  time  of  the  arrival  of  the  Con- 
quistador es  in  South  America  three  differ- 
ent reports  in  circulation  among  the  Indians 
regarding  the  mysterious  personage  whom 
the  Spaniards,  from  the  descriptions  given 
of  him  by  their  informants,  agreed  in  call- 
ing El  Dorado,  an  abbreviation  for  El 
Hombre  o  Eey  Dorado — the  Gilded  Man  or 
King. 

That  they  should  have  heard  of  him 
in  different  places  widely  separated  from 
one  another  is  not  surprising  when  we  re- 
member that  the  Indians  of  Darien  and 
Costa  Rica,  long  before  Francisco  Pizarro's 
advent  in  Peru,  were  aware  of  the  wealth 
and  the  power  of  the  Incas  in  the  remote 
south.  And  that  there  should  have  been  dif- 
ferent accounts  regarding  the  character  and 
place  of  abode  of  this  marvelous  savage  is 
what  might  have  been  expected  by  one  who 
knows  how  prone  Indians  are  to  exaggerate, 
30 


EXPEDITION— DE  BELALCAZAR 

or  to  modify  what  they  have  heard  so  as  to 
suit  their  own  fancy. 

It  was  not,  then,  surprising  that  the  Span- 
iards should  have  been  misled  by  these  di- 
vers and  alluring  reports.  After  the  suc- 
cesses achieved  by  their  countrymen  in 
Mexico  and  Peru,  and  after  the  millions  of 
treasure  which  had  been  found  in  the  lands 
of  the  Aztecs,  Chibchas,  and  Incas,  they 
were  prepared  for  anything.  Nothing 
seemed  impossible,  and  no  tale  about  gilded 
men  or  golden  palaces  was  so  extravagant 
as  to  be  rejected  by  them  as  false.  They 
were  ready  to  give  full  credence  to  even 
greater  fictions  than  the  Golden  Fleece  or 
the  Apples  of  the  Hesperides,  and  would 
not  have  been  surprised  to  find  Ophir  or 
Tarshish  in  the  valleys  of  the  Orinoco  or 
the  Amazon.  The  spirit  of  adventure  and 
romance  dominated  everyone  not  only  in 
the  Indies  but  in  the  mother  country  as  well. 

"For  all  this  Spanish  nation  [writes  an  old 
31 


THE  QUEST  OF  EL  DORADO 

chronicler]  is  so  desirous  of  novelties  that 
what  way  soever  they  bee  called  with  a  becke 
only  or  soft  whispering  voyce,  to  anything 
arising  above  water,  they  speedily  prepare 
themselves  to  flic  and  forsake  certainties,  un- 
der hope  of  an  higher  degree,  to  follow  in- 
certainties,  which  we  may  gather  by  that 
which  is  past." 

It  was  a  vague  and  fantastic  rumor  like 
this  that  lured  Belalcazar  from  Quito  to  the 
Sabana  of  distant  Bogota,  where  he  met 
Quesada  and  Federmann.10  According  to 
the  Indian  from  whom  the  Spanish  chieftain 
received  his  information,  the  Province  of 
El  Dorado  was  called  Cundirumarca,  and 
was  not  more  than  12  days'  distant  from 
Quito.  This  distance,  if  the  Indian's  state- 
ment was  true,  would  preclude  the  plain  of 
Bogota  as  the  home  of  the  Gilded  Man,  for 
it  was  impossible  to  reach  this  place  in  so 
limited  a  time.  Besides,  Cundirumarca  is  a 

10  See  APPENDIX. 

32 


ROUTE  FOLLOWED  BY  SEBASTIAN  DE  BELALCAZAR  IN  QUEST  OF  EL 
DORADO 


EXPEDITION— DE  BELALCAZAR 

Quichua  word,  and  could  not,  it  is  asserted, 
have  been  the  name  of  a  province  in  New 
Granada,  where  the  language  of  the  Incas 
was  unknown.  Despite,  therefore,  the  posi- 
tive statement  of  Piedrahita  that  the  motive 
of  Belalcazar's  expedition  to  the  north  was 
the  discovery  of  El  Dorado  and  the  House 
of  the  Sun,  it  may  be  that  the  real  reason 
was  the  desire  on  the  part  of  Pizarro's  lieu- 
tenant to  cut  loose  from  his  chief  and  find  a 
country  of  which  he  might  himself  become 
the  adelantado.  Subsequent  events  and  the 
realization  of  his  desire  to  be  appointed  gov- 
ernor of  Pop  ay  an  give  color  to  this  surmise. 
Whether,  however,  Belalcazar  misunder- 
stood his  -  informant  regarding  the  loca- 
tion of  the  Province  of  Cundirumarca,  or 
whether  he  was  merely  looking  for  a  pre- 
text for  escaping  from  Peru,  where  he  was 
overshadowed  by  Pizarro,  it  is  certain  that 
the  next  expedition  in  search  of  El  Dorado, 
by  some  considered  the  first  genuine  expe- 
35 


THE  QUEST  OF  EL  DORADO 

dition  in  quest  of  the  Gilded  King,  was 
headed  for  the  eastern  slopes  of  the  Andes 
instead  of  for  the  northern  plateau  of  New 
Granada.  The  country  of  the  Gilded  King, 
it  was  now  thought,  was  in  the  vicinity  of 
the  "Land  of  Cinnamon,"  and  preparations 
were  forthwith  made  to  add  these  rich  lands 
to  the  possessions  of  the  Spanish  Crown. 


CHAPTER  III 

EXPEDITIONS  OF  GONZALO  PIZARRO  AND 
FRANCISCO  DE  ORELLANA 

THE  leader  of  this  expedition  was  the 
famous  Conquistador,  Gonzalo  Pizarro,  a 
half  brother  of  the  conqueror  of  Peru.  To- 
ward the  end  of  February,  1541,  six  years 
after  Belalcazar  had  left  for  New  Granada, 
Pizarro  started  eastward  at  the  head  of  what 
was  then  considered  a  large  and  well- 
equipped  force  of  men — one  much  larger 
than  that  at  the  disposal  of  Francisco  Pi- 
zarro when  he  captured  Atahualpa  and 
gained  possession  of  the  great  Inca  em- 
pire. 

According  to  Zarate,  he  had  under  his 
command  five  hundred  Spaniards,  one  hun- 
dred of  whom  were  mounted,  and  four  thou- 
37 


THE  QUEST  OF  EL  DORADO 

sand  Indians.  One  item  of  the  commissary 
department  was  three  thousand — Herrera 
makes  the  number  five  thousand — swine  and 
llamas,  which  latter  were  called  by  the  Span- 
iards ovejas  del  Peru — Peruvian  sheep. 
Pizarro  evidently  took  the  Indian  literally 
when  he  spoke  of  the  ruler  of  Cundiru- 
marca  as  a  powerful  lord,  and  he,  accord- 
ingly, started  on  his  undertaking  well 
equipped  and  prepared  for  a  long  and  vig- 
orous campaign. 

The  enterprise  that  was  begun  with  such 
careful  preparation  and  with  such  high 
hopes  was  doomed,  so  far  as  its  immediate 
object  was  concerned,  to  have  a  disastrous 
termination,  for  scarcely  had  those  taking 
part  in  it  reached  the  fastnesses  of  the  An- 
des, but  a  few  miles  distant  from  Quito, 
when  their  difficulties  began.  The  intense 
cold  and  the  piercing  winds  which  they  en- 
countered in  crossing  the  formidable  barrier 
of  the  eastern  Cordillera  caused  untold  suf- 
38 


CLIMBING  THE  ANDES  IN  A  DOWNPOUR 


PIZARRO  AND  DE  ORELLANA 

fering  and  occasioned  the  death  of  many 
of  the  Indians.  Then,  to  add  to  their  hard- 
ships, they  experienced  one  of  those  fright- 
ful earthquakes  which  are  so  frequent  in 
this  land  of  terrible  volcanoes.  This  was 
succeeded  by  a  torrential  downpour,  by 
thunder  and  lightning,  which  seemed  to  por- 
tend all  the  dire  calamities  that  thereafter 
ensued.  This  deluge  continued  unabated 
for  weeks  and  so  saturated  the  soil  that 
progress  became  almost  impossible.  The 
adventurers  were  surrounded  by  swollen 
streams,  dangerous  morasses,  and  by  forests 
and  thickets  so  dense  that  they  had  to  hew 
a  way  by  axes  and  machetes.  Drenched 
with  incessant  rains  that  spoiled  their  food 
and  equipment,  rotted  their  garments,  and, 
as  the  chronicler  Molina  expresses  it,  "bap- 
tized their  very  souls,"  they  were  soon  con- 
fronted with  starvation.  Their  live  stock, 
including  even  their  horses  and  dogs,  had 
been  consumed,  and  they  were  reduced  to 
41 


THE  QUEST  OF  EL  DORADO 

subsisting  on  such  edible  fruits  and  herbs  as 
they  could  find  in  the  forest. 

But  pressed  as  they  were  by  hunger  and 
spent  by  toil  so  that  they  could  scarcely 
move,  these  determined  men  of  blood  and 
iron  still  persisted  in  their  course.  They 
found  the  land  of  cinnamon,  but,  as  they  had 
set  out  in  quest  of  El  Dorado,  they  were 
loath,  notwithstanding  the  countless  diffi- 
culties which  beset  their  path,  to  desist  from 
their  undertaking.  In  order  to  make  better 
headway,  Pizarro  resolved  to  construct  a 
brigantine.  Under  the  circumstances  this 
was  a  Herculean  task,  for  he  had  neither  the 
materials  nor  the  necessary  workmen.  But 
nothing  daunted,  the  much-needed  craft  was 
begun  without  delay.  "For  iron,"  Zarate 
informs  us,  "they  used  the  shoes  of  their 
dead  horses,  and  in  lieu  of  pitch  they  availed 
themselves  of  a  gum  which  was  distilled  by 
the  trees  there,  and  for  oakum  they  made 
use  of  the  old  garments  of  the  Indians  or 
42 


PIZARRO  AND  DE  ORELLANA 

the  shirts  of  the  Spaniards,  which  had  been 
rotted  by  the  excessive  rains — each  con- 
tributing what  he  was  able."  1  This  vessel, 
which  was  constructed  under  such  adverse 
conditions,  was  remarkable  not  only  as  be- 
ing the  first  floated  on  these  inland  waters 
by  Europeans,  but  also  as  the  one  that  was 
soon  afterward  utilized  in  making  one  of 
the  most  notable  voyages  recorded  in  the 
annals  of  discovery.  For  it  was  the  San 
Pedro — this  was  the  name  of  the  brigan- 
tine — that  enabled  Orellana,  Pizarro's  lieu- 
tenant, to  discover  the  mighty  Amazon,  and 
that  with  the  Victoria,,  which  was  built  after 
the  San  Pedro,  carried  the  leader  and  his 
intrepid  companions  in  safety  to  the  island 
of  Cubagua,  north  of  the  coast  of  Vene- 
zuela. 

This  is  not  the  place  to  discuss  what  has 

1  "Historia  del  Descubrimiento  y  Conquista  de  la 
Provincia  del  Peru,"  Lib.  IV,  Cap.  Ill,  Amberes 
(1555). 

43 


THE  QUEST  OF  EL  DORADO 

been  called  Orellana's  treason  to  his  chief,2 
who,  finding  himself  abandoned  by  his  lieu- 
tenant, after  he  had  been  sent  in  search  of 
provisions,  suddenly  found  himself  forced 
to  return  to  Quito  or  starve  in  the  wilder- 
ness with  his  remaining  survivors.  Nor  shall 
I  weary  the  reader  with  a  recital  of  the  hard- 
ships and  sufferings  of  Pizarro's  heroic  band 
during  their  long  and  painful  march  home- 
ward. Frequently  they  faced  starvation  in 
its  direst  form,  and  at  times  they  had  noth- 
ing to  appease  the  gnawings  of  hunger  but 
the  leather  of  their  saddles  and  sword  belts. 
Outside  the  scant  sustenance  which  they 
found  in  an  occasional  Indian  settlement, 

2  See  the  author's  "Along  the  Andes  and  Down  the 
Amazon/'  Chap.  XXIII,  New  York  (1Q11);  also 
"Descubrimiento  del  Rio  de  las  Amazonas  segun 
Relacion  hasta  ahora  inedita  de  Fr.  Gaspar  de  Car- 
vajal,  con  otros  documentos  referentes  a  Francisco 
de  Orellana  y  sus  companeros,"  por  Jose  Toribio, 
Medina,  Sevilla  (1894),  and  "La  Traicion  de  Un 
Tuerto,"  por  Ximenes  de  la  Espada  en  "La  Illustra- 
cion  Espanola  Y  Americana  (1 892-1 8Q4). 

44 


PIZARRO  AND  DE  ORELLANA 

their  ordinary  fare  consisted  of  such  fruits, 
herbs  and  roots  as  they  came  across  in  their 
march  through  the  tangled  forest.  When 
these  were  wanting  they  were  forced,  as 
Garcillaso  de  la  Vega  tells  us,  to  eat  toads, 
snakes,  and  other  reptiles  equally  repulsive. 

At  length,  in  June,  1542,  after  an  ab- 
sence of  about  sixteen  months,  "the  way- 
worn company  reached  the  elevated  plain  of 
Quito.  But  how  different  their  aspect  from 
that  which  they  had  exhibited  on  issuing 
from  the  gates  of  the  same  capital,  nearly 
a  year  and  a  half  before,  with  high  romantic 
hope,  and  in  all  the  pride  of  military  array." 

Zarate  writes : 3 

"The  whole  party  from  the  general  to  the 
private  soldier,  was  almost  entirely  naked, 
as,  from  the  almost  continual  rains  to  which 
they  had  been  exposed,  and  the  other  hard- 
ships of  their  journey,  their  clothes  were  all 

3  Op.  cit.  Lib.  IV,  Cap.  V. 
45 


THE  QUEST  OF  EL  DORADO 

rotten  and  torn  to  rags,  and  they  were  re- 
duced to  the  necessity  of  covering  them- 
selves with  the  skins  of  beasts.  Their  swords 
were  all  without  scabbards  and  almost  de- 
stroyed with  rust.  Their  legs  and  arms  were 
torn  and  scratched  by  the  brushwood,  thorns 
and  brakes  through  which  they  had  traveled, 
and  the  whole  party  was  so  pale,  lean,  and 
worn  out  with  fatigue  and  famine  that  their 
most  intimate  acquaintances  were  hardly 
able  to  recognize  them.  Among  all  their  pri- 
vations what  they  felt  the  most  insufferable 
was  the  want  of  salt,  of  which  they  had  not 
been  able  to  secure  the  smallest  supply  for 
above  two  hundred  leagues. 

"On  arriving  in  the  kingdom  of  Quito, 
where  everything  they  stood  in  need  of  was 
brought  to  them,  they  knelt  down  and  kissed 
the  ground  as  a  mark  of  gratitude  and  satis- 
faction, and  returned  thanks  to  God  for  their 
preservation  from  so  many  dangers.  Such 
was  their  eagerness  for  food,  after  so  long 

46 


PIZARRO  AND  DE  ORELLANA 

famine,  that  it  became  necessary  to  regulate 
their  supply  and  only  allow  them  to  eat  but 
little  at  a  time  till  their  stomachs  became 
accustomed  to  digest  their  food." 

For  courage  and  constancy  in  the  midst 
of  untold  hardships  and  dangers  the  expedi- 
tion of  Gonzalo  Pizarro  was  truly  remark- 
able. The  intrepid  adventurers  composing 
it  had  to  contend  at  every  step  with  a  gi- 
gantic and  invincible  enemy — rude  and  sav- 
age nature  with  all  its  powerful  elements  of 
destruction.  And  were  it  not  for  the  results 
of  the  expedition,  and  the  names  of  places 
recorded  by  historians,  one  would  be  in- 
clined to  regard  the  story  of  this  matchless 
achievement  as  a  fantastic  tale  without  foun- 
dation in  fact.  Indeed,  when  we  contem- 
plate the  valor  and  daring  of  Pizarro  and 
his  companions,  their  resistance  to  fatigue 
in  unheard-of  hardships,  we  are  disposed 
to  think  that  the  men  of  their  day  were 
47 


THE  QUEST  OF  EL  DORADO 

of  a  different  mold  from  those  of  our  own. 

During  this  expedition  the  Spaniards, 
says  Gomara,  "traveled  four  hundred 
leagues,  the  entire  distance  through  a  path- 
less wilderness."  Of  the  two  hundred  and 
more  that  started  on  it  less  than  one  hun- 
dred returned  to  Quito,  and  among  them 
there  was  not  a  single  one  of  the  four  thou- 
sand Indians  who  had  accompanied  them  on 
their  departure.4 

And  what  was  the  net  result  of  this  ex- 
pedition? Outside  of  the  discovery  of  the 
Amazon  by  Orellana,  which  was  incidental, 
it  was  virtually  nil.  The  adventurers  found, 
it  is  true,  the  land  of  cinnamon,  but  the  trees 
bearing  the  precious  bark  were  so  few  and 
widely  separated,  and  so  far  away  from 
means  of  transportation,  that  they  were 
practically  valueless.  Beyond  certain  vague 

4"Historia  de  las  Indias/'  Cap.  CXLIII:  "No 
bolvieron  cien  Espaiioles  de  doscientos  i  mas  que 
fueron;  no  bolvio  Indio  ninguno  de  quantos  llevaron." 

48 


PIZARRO  AND  DE  ORELLANA 

rumors  of  a  rich  and  powerful  chief  living 
somewhere  between  the  Amazon  and  the 
Rio  Negro  they  could  secure  no  information 
regarding  the  Gilded  King  and  the  province 
of  gold  that  were  the  objects  of  their  quest. 
And  what  seems  passing  strange  is  that 
Padre  Carbajal,  the  chronicler  of  Orellana's 
expedition,  makes  no  mention  whatever  of 
El  Dorado,  although  he  must  have  known 
that  it  was  this  mysterious  character  that 
Gonzalo  Pizarro  had  chiefly  in  view  when 
he  left  Quito  for  the  land  of  Canela.  Aside, 
then,  from  their  value  to  geographical 
science  the  expeditions  of  both  Pizarro  and 
Orellana  were  as  barren  of  the  results  sought 
as  was  that  of  Belalcazar  a  few  years  before. 
But  failure  on  the  part  of  these  three 
gallant  leaders,  and  the  recital  of  the  terri- 
ble sufferings  and  hardships  which  had  been 
endured  by  those  who  had  taken  part  in  the 
first  enterprise,  did  not  discourage  others 
or  deter  them  from  essaying  to  achieve  suc- 
49 


THE  QUEST  OF  EL  DORADO 

cess  where  their  luckless  predecessors  had 
failed.  The  vague  and  conflicting  reports 
about  the  rich  and  powerful  tribe  of  Indians 
east  of  the  Andes  and  north  of  the  Amazon, 
called  the  Omaguas,  were  sufficient  to  deter- 
mine the  organization  and  equipment  of  new 
expeditions  without  delay,  the  aim  of  all  of 
which  was  to  discover  the  ever-alluring  and 
ever-elusive  El  Dorado. 


CHAPTER  IV 

EXPEDITIONS     OF     FERNAN     PEREZ     DE 
QUESADA  AND   PHILIP  VON   HUTTEN 

EVEN  before  Orellana  had  embarked  for 
Spain  to  seek  the  governorship  of  the  region 
he  had  discovered,  another  expedition  in 
search  of  the  Gilded  Man  was  nearing  its 
termination.  This  was  under  the  command 
of  Fernan  Perez  de  Quesada,  who,  like  so 
many  others,  had  been  captivated  by  the 
glowing  accounts  of  El  Dorado's  riches 
given  him  by  the  soldiers  of  Belalcazar  and 
resolved  forthwith  to  abandon  the  comforts 
and  luxuries,  which,  as  governor  of  New 
Granada,  he  enjoyed  during  the  absence  in 
Spain  of  his  brother  Gonzalo,  and  go  in  pur- 
suit of  a  flitting  phantom.  This  enterprise, 
counting  more  than  two  hundred  and  fifty 
men  and  having  full  two  hundred  horses, 
51 


THE  QUEST  OF  EL  DORADO 

was  begun  at  Tunja,  north  of  Bogota,  in 
September,  1545.  The  adventurers,  after 
crossing  the  eastern  Cordillera  and  reaching 
what  are  now  known  as  the  llanos  of  Colom- 
bia, advanced  toward  the  south,  with  the 
sierras  on  their  right  and  the  broad  grassy 
plains  of  the  lowlands  on  the  left.  Their 
hardships  and  sufferings  in  the  wilderness 
from  lack  of  food  were  appalling  enough, 
but  they  were  still  more  intensified  by  the 
incessant  rains  and  by  the  frequent  attacks 
of  savage  Indians.  They  eventually  suc- 
ceeded in  reaching  the  headwaters  of  the 
Caqueta  and  in  penetrating  even  the  land 
of  Canela,  which  had  but  a  short  time  pre- 
viously witnessed  the  homeward  march  of 
Gonzalo  Pizarro  and  his  helpless  band. 
Quesada's  expedition,  like  Pizarro's,  lasted 
sixteen  months,1  during  which  he  lost  eighty 

1  Oviedo  y  Banos,  in  his  "Historia  de  la  Conquista 
y  Poblacion  de  la  Provincia  de  Venezuela,"  Tom.  I, 
p.  152,  says  two  years. 

52 


DE  QUESADA  AND  VON  HUTTEN 

men  and  all  his  horses.  And  like  his  ill- 
starred  predecessor,  he  had  nothing  to  show 
for  his  enormous  expenditure  of  energy  arid 
courage  but  a  depleted  purse.  And  withal, 
El  Dorado  was  still  as  far  away  from  the 
eager,  expectant  Spaniards  as  ever. 

While  Quesada  was  cutting  his  way 
through  the  impenetrable  jungles  of  the 
montana,  another  expedition  was  organiz- 
ing at  Coro,  in  northwestern  Venezuela,  un- 
der Philip  von  Hutten,  a  relative  of  the 
Welsers,  the  rich  German  bankers  of  Augs- 
burg, who  then  held  from  the  Emperor 
Charles  V  a  large  -concession  of  land  in 
Tierra  Firme  and  who  were  bent  on  secur- 
ing a  part  of  the  vast  treasures  reported  to 
be  in  the  territory  ceded  them  by  the  Span- 
ish monarch.  Previous  expeditions  had  been 
sent  out  by  representatives  of  this  company, 
among  which  was  that  of  Federmann,  of 
which  mention  has  already  been  made  in  a 
preceding  chapter.  In  addition  to  this  noted 
55 


THE  QUEST  OF  EL  DORADO 

enterprise,  two  others  had  been  under- 
taken by  the  Welsers  from  Coro,  headed 
by  Ambrose  Alfinger  and  George  Hoher- 
muth.  Three  of  these  adventurous  leaders, 
however,  although  they  went  in  search  of 
gold  and  other  treasures,  did  not,  as  is  so 
often  stated,  take  any  part  in  the  quest  of 
El  Dorado,  for  the  simple  reason  that  they 
had  never  heard  of  this  mythical  person- 
age. A  rumor  regarding  it  first  reached 
Von  Hutten  after  he  had  left  Coro  on 
his  way  southward.  It  came  to  his  ears 
through  his  campmaster,  Pedro  de  Lim- 
pias,  who  had  served  with  intelligence, 
valor,  and  distinction  in  the  expeditions 
of  Alfinger  and  Federmann,  and  who 
was,  therefore,  well  acquainted  with  the 
regions  which  Von  Hutten  purposed  visit- 
ing. To  render  the  enterprise  more  attrac- 
tive and  romantic,  "De  Limpias  began,"  as 
Oviedo  y  Banos  informs  us,  "to  designate 
the  provinces  which  they  were  starting  out 
56 


DE  QUESADA  AND  VON  HUTTEN 

to  conquer  by  the  high-standing  name  of  El 
Dorado,  an  appellation  which  the  soldiers 
of  Belalcazar  invented  in  Quito  in  1536, 
because  of  the  fantastic  account  which  an 
Indian  gave  them  of  a  powerful  kingdom 
toward  the  east  in  the  llanos,  or  because  of 
a  device  of  the  devil,  which  is  the  more  likely 
view,  for  the  report  being  spread  throughout 
America  was  the  cause  of  all  the  deaths  and 
misfortunes  which  the  Spanish  nation  had 
to  mourn  in  consequence  of  the  numbers 
who,  carried  away  by  the  fame  of  these 
mythical  provinces,  made  an  effort  to  dis- 
cover its  alleged  riches." 

Von  Hutten  had  one  hundred  and  thirty 
men  under  his  command  when  he  left  Coro 
in  June,  1541.  He  went  by  sea  to  Bur- 
burata,  thence  to  Valencia  and  Barquisi- 

!  "Historia  de  la  Conquista  y  Poblacion  de  la  Pro- 
vincia  de  Venezuela/'  Tom.  I,  pp.  150-151,  Madrid 
(1885).  Cf.  also  "L'Occupation  Allemande  du 
Venesuela  au  XVIe  Siecle/'  par  Jules  Humbert,  Paris 
(1905). 

57 


THE  QUEST  OF  EL  DORADO 

meto,  whence  he  started  for  the  llanos,  fol- 
lowing closely  in  the  footsteps  of  Feder- 
mann  until  he  reached  a  pueblo  called  by 
this  gallant  commander  La  Fragua  and  by 
Hohermuth  Nuestra  Senora,  but  which  was 
subsequently  known  as  San  Juan  de  los 
Llanos.  Arrived  at  this  place  he  learned 
from  the  Indians  that  Fernan  Perez  de 
Quesada  had  but  a  few  days  previously 
passed  through  it  with  a  large  force  of  foot 
and  horse. 

After  serious  deliberation,  Von  Hutten 
concluded  to  follow  closely  in  the  rear  of 
Quesada  in  the  hope  of  sharing  with  him 
the  treasures  of  El  Dorado,  should  he  suc- 
ceed in  discovering  the  whereabouts  of  the 
Gilded  Man.  The  march  of  both  expedi- 
tions was  through  trackless  plains  and  wood- 
lands, across  impetuous  rivers  and  deep 
quagmires,  in  tropic  heat  and  torrential  rains 
that  were  more  than  enough  to  depress  the 
stoutest  hearts.  But  these  intrepid  soldiers 
58 


DE  QUESADA  AND  VON  HUTTEN 

of  fortune  pressed  onward,  fully  convinced 
that  they  would  eventually  find  the  object 
of  their  quest.  After  untold  trials  and  dan- 
gers Quesada  at  length  reached  the  Prov- 
ince of  Papamene,  at  the  headwaters  of  the 
Caqueta  or  Japura  and  thence  made  his 
way  to  Popayan,  whence  he  was  glad  to  re- 
turn to  Bogota  a  wiser  but  a  poorer  man. 

Von  Hutten,  after  following  Quesada  to 
Timana,  near  the  crest  of  the  eastern  Cor- 
dillera, to  the  southeast  of  Popayan,  faced 
about  and  directed  his  course  toward  the 
river  Guaviare,  on  the  banks  of  which  his 
Indian  guide  had  assured  him  was  a  great 
city  called  Macatoa,  the  capital  of  a  region 
rich  in  gold  and  silver.  As  an  evidence  of 
the  truth  of  his  story  he  showed  the  German 
leader  samples  of  gold  fashioned  in  the  form 
of  apples  or  nisperos,  which,  he  said,  had 
been  brought  from  that  city.  But  before 
he  could  reach  his  eagerly  coveted  goal  the 
winter  season  came  on,  and  the  entire  region 
59 


THE  QUEST  OF  EL  DORADO 

was  inundated.  There  was  then  nothing  for 
the  Spaniards  to  do  but  seek  higher  ground 
and  await  the  return  of  the  dry  season.  But 
as  the  district  in  which  they  had  taken  refuge 
was  sparsely  populated  and  almost  entirely 
destitute  of  the  means  of  subsistence  the 
valiant  explorers  soon  began  to  experience 
all  the  horrors  of  famine.  For  a  while  their 
chief  sustenance  was  a  mixture  of  maize  and 
ants.  The  ants  were  secured  by  placing 
some  maize  near  the  opening  of  an  ant  hill, 
and  when  it  was  covered  with  these  insects 
they  consumed  maize  and  insects  together 
and  thus  allayed  their  hunger.  But,  as 
there  was  not  enough  of  this  aliment  for  all, 
many  were  fain  to  appease  the  gnawings  of 
hunger  by  consuming  grubs,  beetles,  or  other 
things  equally  disgusting.  In  consequence 
of  this  their  hair,  beards  and  eyebrows  fell 
off.  "Finally,"  writes  Oviedo  y  Banos,  "all 
were  covered  with  pestiferous  tumors  and 
poisonous  ulcers,  and  that  afflicted  troop  was 

60 


From  Ovtedo's  "Historia  Natural  y  General  de  las  Indias" 

PRIMITIVE  MEANS  OF  NAVIGATION  IN  THE  TIME  OF  THOSE  WHO 
WENT  IN  QUEST  OF  EL  DORADO 


DE  QUESADA  AND  VON  HUTTEN 

converted  into  a  theater  of  miseries  and  an 
hospital  of  misfortunes."  3  When  the  in- 
undation had  subsided  sufficiently  to  permit 
them  to  travel  they  resumed  their  march, 
and,  after  long  wandering  about  in  the  wil- 
derness, they  found  themselves  again  at 
Nuestra  Senora,  whence  they  had  departed 
a  twelvemonth  before. 

Their  failure  and  hardships  did  not,  how- 
ever, cause  them  to  abandon  their  enterprise. 
Far  from  it.  Their  ardor  was  as  quench- 
less and  their  determination  to  achieve  suc- 
cess was  as  strong  as  when  they  had  taken 
their  departure  from  Coro.  The  reported 
existence  toward  the  south  of  a  country 
abounding  in  gold  and  silver  supplied  them 
with  a  new  clew  and  gave  new  zest  to  the 
expedition.  After  a  long  and  perilous 
march,  during  which  they  passed  through 
the  country  of  the  Uapes  and  visited  their 
capital,  Macatoa,  the  brave  and  persevering 

3  Op.  cit.jTom.  I,  p.  157. 
63 


THE  QUEST  OF  EL  DORADO 

expeditioners  reached  the  land  of  the  rich 
and  powerful  Omaguas  who  inhabited  the 
territory  between  the  Guaviare  and  the 
Caqueta,  that  land  which  Wallace,  as  late 
as  1853,  called  "the  unknown  regions  be- 
tween the  Rio  Guaviare  on  one  side  and  the 
Japura  on  the  other." 

Here,  from  an  elevated  position,  the  ad- 
venturers descried  what  they  fondly  be- 
lieved was  the  goal  which  they  had  so  long 
been  striving  to  reach.  It  was  a-  city  so 
large,  so  they  afterwards  reported,  that, 
though  it  was  near  at  hand,  it  extended  be- 
yond the  range  of  vision.  The  streets  were 
straight  with  the  houses  close  together,  and 
in  the  midst  of  all  was  an  imposing  edifice, 
which  their  Indian  guide  informed  them  was 
the  palace  of  Quarica,  the  lord  of  the  Oma- 
guas. The  structure  also  served  as  a  temple 
in  which,  Von  Hutten's  guide  stated,  were 
idols  of  massive  gold.  Some  of  them,  he 
averred,  were  as  large  as  children  three  and 
64 


DE  QUESADA  AND  VON  HUTTEN 

four  years  old,  while  one  of  them  was  of  the 
size  of  a  full-grown  woman.  Besides  these 
objects  there  were  also  there  incalculable 
treasures  belonging  to  the  cacique  and  his 
vassals.  And  beyond  this  great  city,  the 
Spaniards  were  assured,  were  other  larger 
and  richer  cities  belonging  to  powerful 
chieftains,  who  governed  countless  subjects 
and  whose  treasures  of  gold  were  far  greater 
than  those  of  the  lord  of  the  imposing  city 
on  which  their  eyes  were  then  riveted. 

With  such  vast  riches  within  their  grasp 
the  adventurers  were  beside  themselves  with 
joy.  And  although  they  counted  but  forty 
men,  all  told,  they  did  not  hesitate  to  attack 
a  city  in  which,  as  they  had  been  apprised, 
was  a  large  and  well-trained  army.  Putting 
spurs  to  his  horse,  Von  Hutten  dashed  for- 
ward, followed  by  his  men,  who  all  confi- 
dently expected  to  be  in  a  few  hours  the 
possessors  of  princely  fortunes.  But  a  well- 
directed  javelin  from  the  hand  of  an  Oma- 
65 


THE  QUEST  OF  EL  DORADO 

guan  Indian,  which  seriously  wounded  the 
daring  leader,  suddenly  arrested  the  impet- 
uous onset  and  compelled  the  attacking 
party  to  beat  a  hasty  retreat.  But  fifteen 
thousand  Omaguan  warriors  were  soon  in 
hot  pursuit  and  shortly  after  engaged  the 
invaders  in  battle.  The  Indians,  however, 
notwithstanding  their  vastly  superior  num- 
bers, were  defeated  with  great  loss,  while 
the  followers  of  Von  Hutten,  under  the  com- 
mand of  Pedro  de  Limpias,  did  not  have  a 
single  casualty.  The  victors  then  returned 
to  Nuestra  Senora,  where  six  months  before 
they  had  left  their  infirm  and  incapacitated 
companions.  A  council  of  war  was  now 
convened,  in  which  it  was  decided  not  to 
prosecute  the  enterprise  so  auspiciously  be- 
gun without  more  men.  These  had  to  be 
obtained  from  Coro.  But  Von  Hutten  did 
not  live  to  realize  his  fond  hopes,  for  he  was 
soon  afterwards  cruelly  murdered  through 
the  treachery  of  Pedro  de  Limpias,  when 
66 


AMAZONS  PKACTICING  ARCHERY  ON  THEIR  PRISONERS  AND  PRE- 
PARING TO  ROAST  THEIR  VICTIMS 

Raleigh  says  of  them  :  "If  in  the  wars  they  tooke  any  prisoners 
*  *  *  in  the  end  for  certaine  they  put  them  to  death,  for 
they  are  said  to  be  very  cruel  and  bloodthirsty."  They  were 
first  heard  of  in  South  America  when  Orellana  made  his  cele- 
brated voyage  down  the  Amazon. 


DE  QUESADA  AND  VON  HUTTEN 

those  who  had  taken  part  in  the  expedition 
disbanded  without  making  any  further  at- 
tempt to  gain  possession  of  the  rich  king- 
dom which  they  had  discovered  and  which 
they  had  already  considered  as  theirs  by 
right  of  virtual  conquest. 

Did  Von  Hutten  really  discover  El 
Dorado?  He  certainly  thought  so,  as  did 
likewise  his  doughty  followers.  Fully  cred- 
iting what  his  Indian  guides  had  told  him 
regarding  the  vast  treasures  of  gold  kept 
in  the  temple  of  the  Omaguas,  he  concluded 
at  once  that  the  cacique  of  his  tribe  was  no 
other  than  the  long  sought  Gilded  King, 
although  he  had  no  ocular  evidence  of  the 
fact  or  any  tangible  proof  of  the  existence 
of  the  great  stores  of  gold  and  silver  of 
which  he  had  heard  such  glowing  reports. 
As  to  the  city  of  the  Omaguas,  which,  we 
are  told,  was  so  large  that  it  extended  be- 
yond the  range  of  vision,  it  was  manifestly 
the  creation  of  an  excited  fancy  and  as  much 


THE  QUEST  OF  EL  DORADO 

of  an  exaggeration  as  the  battle  of  forty 
Europeans  against  fifteen  thousand  Indians. 
It  could,  at  best,  have  been  nothing  more 
than  an  agglomeration  of  villages,  and  the 
palace  and  temple,  far  from  being  the  im- 
posing edifice  described,  was  but  a  large 
thatched  structure  similar  to  those  still  seen 
in  the  region  bordering  the  Equator.4 

Be  this,  however,  as  it  may,  the  fact  re- 
mains that  Von  Hutten's  expedition  created 
an  extraordinary  sensation  both  in  the  New 
and  in  the  Old  World.  Other  adventurers 
had  but  heard  of  El  Dorado,  but  the  Ger- 
man commander  and  his  men  had  actually 
located  him  and  had  gazed  on  his  palace, 
which  was  an  immense  storehouse  of  silver 

4  For  the  most  complete  and  authentic  account  of 
the  expedition  of  Philip  Von  Hutten  the  reader  is 
referred  to  the  "Noticias  Historiales  de  las  Con- 
quistas  de  Tierra  Firme  en  las  Indias  Occidentales/' 
by  Fray  Pedro  Simon,  Quinta  Noticia,  Capitulos  I 
to  XI,  inclusive,  Cuenca  (1626),  or  the  1882  edition 
of  Bogota. 

70 


DE  QUESADA  AND  VON  HUTTEN 

and  gold.  Naturally  they  were  elated,  for 
they  had  succeeded  in  achieving  what  others 
had  failed  to  accomplish.  The  Gilded  Man 
was  no  longer  a  mere  chimera  but  a  being 
with  a  "local  habitation  and  a  name."  He 
was  the  ruler  of  a  densely  populated  region 
between  the  Guaviare  and  the  Amazon 
and  his  people  were  known  as  Omaguas. 
Thenceforward  the  name  El  Dorado  was 
coupled  with  that  of  the  Omaguas  and  both 
names  were  regarded  as  synonymous  with 
inexhaustible  wealth. 


CHAPTER  V 

EXPEDITIONS  OF  PEDRO  DE  URSUA,  MAR- 
TIN DE  PROVEDA,  AND  PEDRO  DE 
SILVA 

A  NEW  impetus  was  now  given  to  the 
quest  of  El  Dorado  and  all  eyes  were  turned 
to  the  land  of  the  Omaguas.  Hitherto  all 
expeditions  in  search  of  the  ever-vanishing 
phantom  had  started  from  points  north  of 
Peru,  but,  in  1559,  the  viceroy  of  Peru,  the 
Marquis  of  Canete,  commissioned  a  young 
knight  of  Navarre,  Pedro  de  Ursua,  to  lead 
an  expedition  to  the  land  of  the  Omaguas 
in  search  of  the  Gilded  King.  Truth  to  tell, 
the  real  object  of  the  viceroy  in  inaugu- 
rating this  enterprise  was  to  get  rid  of  the 
large  number  of  wild  adventurers  who  had 
been  attracted  to  Peru  by  the  civil  wars. 
Ursua  soon  found  himself  at  the  head  of 
72 


URSUA9  PROVEDA  AND  SILVA 

some  hundreds  of  these  lawless  characters 
and,  assuming  the  title  of  "Governor  of 
Omagua  and  El  Dorado,2'  he,  in  1560,  em- 
barked near  Lamas  on  a  hastily  and  rude- 
ly constructed  craft  and  started  down  the 
River  Huallaga.  He  soon  reached  the 
Amazon,  and,  sailing  down  this  great  river, 
he  eventually  reached  the  province  of  Machi- 
paro  who,  according  to  Padre  Carvajal, 
the  chronicler  of  Orellana's  expedition,  was 
a  great  lord  who  ruled  over  many  peoples 
and  who  was  the  friend  and  ally  of  another 
powerful  neighboring  chief  called  Omagua. 
Owing  to  the  hostility  of  Machiparo  and 
his  people,  Orellana  was  not  able  to  explore 
the  interior  of  the  country,  but  he  learned 
that  the  chief  of  the  region  possessed  great 
treasures  of  gold  and  silver.  Ursua  found, 
as  had  Von  Hutten  and  Orellana  before 
him,  the  lands  of  Machiparo  and  Omagua 
so  densely  populated  that,  for  a  distance 
of  eighty  leagues,  the  settlements  were  so 
73 


THE  QUEST  OF  EL  DORADO 

close  together  that  they  were  not  separated 
from  one  another  by  more  than  a  crossbow 
shot — no  habia  de  poblado  a  poblado  un  tiro 
de  ballesta — and  that  there  was  one  compact 
city  five  leagues  in  length.1 

Before  Ursua,  however,  had  time  to  ex- 
plore this  region,  where  he  expected  to  win 
fame  and  fortune,  his  career  was  cut  short  in 
the  most  tragic  manner.  Three  months  and 
six  days  after  faring  forth  on  the  Huallaga, 
and  when  he  was  within  easy  access  of  the 
rich  lands  of  which  Orellana  had  heard,  but 
was  unable  to  visit,  the  lands  which  Von 
Hutten  had  seen  but  had  not  gained  posses- 
sion of,  he  was,  on  New  Year's  day,  cruelly 
murdered  by  some  of  his  own  men  near  the 
confluence  of  the  Amazon  and  the  Putu- 
mayo.  But  such  a  termination  of  this  en- 

1  "Descubrimiento  del  Rio  de  las  Amazonas  segun 
la  Relacion  hasta  ahora  inedita  de  Fr.  Caspar  Car- 
vajal/'  p.  40,  por  Jose  Toribio  Medina,  Sevilla 
(1894). 

74 


URSUA,  PROVEDA  AND  SILVA 

terprise  might  have  been  foreseen,  and  in- 
deed had  been  foreseen  by  some  of  Ursua's 
friends,  who  tried,  but  in  vain,  to  put  him 
on  his  guard  against  certain  of  the  treach- 
erous and  dangerous  characters  who  had 
joined  the  expedition.  For  among  them, 
according  to  the  Bachiller  Francisco  Vas- 
quez,  who  accompanied  Ursua,  and  who 
wrote  an  account  of  the  undertaking,  were 
the  offscourings  of  Peru,  men  who  had  been 
mutineers  and  traitors  in  the  service  of  the 
Spanish  monarch,  and  who  had  joined  the 
expedition  in  order  to  elude  the  officers  of 
justice  and  to  escape  the  punishment  due 
to  their  crimes.2  Such  being  the  case,  suc- 
cess was  impossible,  and  the  enterprise  was 
doomed  from  the  beginning. 

After  Ursua's  tragic  fate,  the  command 

2  "Relation  de  Todo  lo  que  sucedio  en  la  Jornada 
de  Omagua  y  Dorado  hecha  por  el  Gobernador  Pedro 
de  Orsua/'  p.  31,  Madrid  (1881);  and  "Jornada  del 
Rio  Maranon/'  Cap.  Ill,  by  Toribio  de  Ortiguera,  in 
"Historiadores  de  Indias,"  Tom.  II,  Madrid  (1909). 

75 


THE  QUEST  OF  EL  DORADO 

of  the  expedition  was  usurped  by  the  no- 
torious Lope  de  Aguirre,  "The  Traitor." 
All  thought  of  discovering  El  Dorado  was 
now  abandoned.  The  tyrant  even  issued 
an  order  that  no  one  should  thenceforth 
speak  of  the  Omaguas  under  penalty  of 
death.  For  now  the  avowed  purpose  of 
Aguirre  and  his  Maranones,  as  he  called  his 
fellow  conspirators,  was  nothing  less  than 
to  reach  the  North  Sea,  the  name  then  given 
to  the  Atlantic,  and  return  by  way  of  Pan- 
ama to  Peru,  with  the  design  of  starting  an 
insurrection  there,  and  wresting  the  govern- 
ment from  the  King  of  Spain,  to  whom,  in 
his  madness,  he  had  foresworn  allegiance.. 
The  only  interest  the  expedition  has  for  us 
after  the  assassination  of  Ursua  attaches  to 
the  route  by  which  the  Maranones  succeeded 
in  crossing  the  continent  and  reaching  the 
Atlantic.  Extraordinary  as  it  may  seem, 
this  route  was  by  the  Casiquiare,  that  won- 
derful waterway  which  connects  the  Ama- 
76 


LEGEND 

ROUTES  FOLLOWED  BY 
R.DE  URSUA 
M.DE  PROVEDA    o_o— o— 
P.OE  SILVA 

FIRST  EXPEDITION  t~>~ •—  •— 
SECOND  "  xxxxx«x». 
G-J-DE  QUESAOA  o <> 


ROUTES  FOLLOWED  IN  THE  QUEST  OF  EL  DORADO 


URSUA,  PROVEDA  AND  SILVA 

zon  with  the  Orinoco.  For  this  achievement 
the  piratical  cruise  of  the  "mad  demon, 
Aguirre,"  will  always  remain  memorable  in 
the  annals  of  geographical  discovery.3 

After  the  frightful  hardships,  losses  of 
life,  and  tragic  terminations  of  the  expedi- 
tions of  Yon  Hutten  and  Pedro  de  Ursua, 
one  would  have  thought  that  further  enter- 
prises of  the  kind  would  evoke  but  little 
enthusiasm.  But  such  was  not  the  case. 
The  ardor  of  the  restless,  daring  adven- 
turers of  the  time  was  as  undamped  as  ever, 
and  only  two  years  after  Aguirre's  death, 
at  the  hand  of  his  own  Maranones,  Martin 
de  Proveda  led  an  expedition  in  quest  of 
El  Dorado  from  Chachapoyas,  Peru.  He 
followed,  apparently,  the  same  route  as  that 
taken  by  Ursua  until  he  attained  the  mouth 

3  For  further  information  respecting  this  marvelous 
passage  of  the  Casiquiare  the  reader  is  referred  to 
the  chapter  on  "The  Romance  of  the  Amazon*'  in 
the  author's  "Along  the  Andes  and  Down  the  Ama- 
zon." 

79 


THE  QUEST  OF  EL  DORADO 

of  the  Napo.  From  this  point  he  directed 
his  course  toward  the  north  and  pushed  for- 
ward through  the  dense  woodlands  and 
broad  savannas,  which  are  watered  by  the 
Putumayo,  the  Caqueta,  and  the  Guaviare. 
He  must,  therefore,  have  followed,  at  least 
during  a  part  of  his  journey,  in  the  footsteps 
of  Von  Hutten,  and  must  have  come  in  con- 
tact with  the  Omaguas  and  Uapes,  but  with 
no  result  except  a  vague  rumor  of  the  exist- 
ence of  rich  provinces  somewhere  in  the 
unexplored  wilderness.  After  having  lost 
most  of  his  men,  he  finally  arrived  at  San 
Juan  de  los  Llanos,  which  had  marked 
stages  in  the  German  expeditions  of  Hoher- 
muth,  Federrnann,  and  Von  Hutten.  From 
this  place  he  proceeded  in  a  northerly  direc- 
tion, eventually  crossing  the  eastern  range 
of  the  Cordilleras,  and  arriving  at  Santa 
Fe  de  Bogota.  Here  the  account  of  his 
adventures  excited  the  greatest  interest,  for 
he  was  the  first  European,  since  the  ill-fated 
80 


URSUA,  PROVEDA  AND  SILVA 

expedition  of  Gonzalo  Pizarro,  to  journey 
from  the  basin  of  the  Amazon  to  the  table- 
lands of  the  Andes. 

Among  those  who  accompanied  Proveda 
from  Chachapoyas  was  a  Spaniard  from 
Estremadura  named  Pedro  de  Silva.  In 
spite  of  the  fruitless  enterprise  in  which  he 
had  just  taken  part  he  was  so  convinced  of 
the  existence  of  the  Gilded  King  that,  a 
few  years  after  his  arrival  at  Bogota,  he  re- 
solved to  go  to  Spain  and  organize  there 
an  expedition  for  the  discovery  of  the  phan- 
tom which  had  deluded  so  many  previous 
adventurers.  He  succeeded  without  diffi- 
culty in  securing  from  the  Spanish  mon- 
arch the  concession  of  a  certain  region  called 
the  "Land  of  the  Omaguas,"  which  was 
thenceforth  to  be  known  as  New  Estre- 
madura, of  which  he  was  named  adelantado. 
But  stranger  still  was  the  ease  with  which 
he  was  able  to  obtain  the  necessary  men 
and  money  for  his  undertaking.  For  no 
81 


THE  QUEST  OF  EL  DORADO 

sooner  was  the  object  of  his  enterprise  made 
known  than  crowds  flocked  to  him  from  all 
quarters.  And  so  great  was  the  mad  rush 
for  the  land  of  El  Dorado  that  Spain,  as 
Padre  Simon  tells  us,  could  have  been  de- 
populated. Men  sold  all  their  property  and 
willingly  lent  the  proceeds  to  Silva,  who 
promised  to  return  all  loans  with  a  large 
premium  as  soon  as  they  arrived  in  New 
Estremadura.  Some  gave  him  ten  ducats, 
others  a  thousand,  and  all  expected  returns 
that  would  be  many  times  greater  than  the 
amounts  advanced.  Some  even  sold  their 
clothing  and  jewels  in  order  to  contribute' 
toward  the  equipment  of  the  expedition, 
which  was  the  first  to  be  organized  in  Spain 
for  the  discovery  of  the  land  of  the  Gilded 
King.  When  the  time  came  for  embark- 
ing, Silva  saw  six  hundred  men — nobles  and 
plebeians — ready  to  accompany  him.  More 
than  one  hundred  of  these  were  married  and 
were  prepared  to  depart  with  their  families. 
82 


URSUA,  PROVEDA  AND  SILVA 

The  19th  of  March,  1569,  the  expedition 
set  sail  from  San  Lucar,  and  in  due  course 
arrived  at  the  island  of  Margarita.  Here, 
owing  to  a  disagreement,  more  than  one 
hundred  and  fifty  members  of  the  expedi- 
tion declined  to  go  farther.  Shortly  after- 
wards those  who  were  left  disembarked  at 
Burburata  on  the  northern  coast  of  Vene- 
zuela, whence  they  proceeded  to  Valencia. 
The  majority  of  them  here  deserted  their 
leader,  especially  those  who  had  their  fami- 
lies with  them.  Of  the  large  number  who 
were  with  the  governor  on  his  departure 
from  Spain  only  one  hundred  and  forty  sol- 
diers were  now  left,  and  with  this  small  force 
he  made  haste,  before  it  should  be  further 
diminished,  to  prosecute  his  enterprise. 
Leaving  Valencia  for  the  south  he  soon 
found  himself  in  the  boundless  llanos  of 
Venezuela,  where  they  had  to  endure  in- 
describable hardships  through  lack  of  food 
and  the  intense  heat  of  the  sunbaked  region 
83 


THE  QUEST  OF  EL  DORADO 

which  they  traversed.  At  times  their  course 
lay  through  immense  swamps  covered  with 
coarse  sedges — like  razor-grass — that  cut 
the  clothing  from  their  backs ;  at  others  over 
a  parched  desert — a  fierce,  gleaming,  angry 
waste — where  there  was  neither  food  nor 
water.  Seeing  nothing  before  them  but 
starvation  and  death,  most  of  Silva's  remain- 
ing troops  deserted  him.  The  richly 
equipped  expedition  that  had  started  out 
with  such  high  hopes  eventually  dwindled 
down  to  thirty  persons,  many  of  whom  were 
sick  or  worn  out  by  fatigue  and  suffering. 
Finally,  after  fruitless  wandering  for  six 
months  about  in  the  desolate  and  sparsely 
inhabited  plains,  the  exhausted  survivors  of 
this  disastrous  enterprise  succeeded  in  mak- 
ing their  way  to  Barquisimeto,  where  they 
disbanded.  From  this  place  Silva  departed 
for  Bogota,  whence  he  returned  to  his  dis- 
tant home  in  Chachapoyas. 

One  would  naturally  suppose  that  Silva's 
84 


URSUA,  PROVEDA  AND  SILVA 

experience  would  have  sufficed  to  deter  him 
from  taking  part  in  any  further  enterprises 
in  search  of  the  phantom  which  had  previ- 
ously been  the  cause  of  such  frightful  disas- 
ters. Far  from  it.  He  had  scarcely  reached 
home  when  he  again  set  out  for  Spain  to 
organize  a  second  expedition  for  the  search 
of  El  Dorado.  And,  incredible  as  it  may 
seem,  he  was  soon  at  the  head  of  one  hun- 
dred and  seventy  men,  who  were  willing  to 
risk  their  fortunes  and  lives  in  the  quest  of 
that  ignis  fatuus  which  had  already  led  so 
many  to  destruction.  Entering  the  Drag- 
on's Mouth,  between  the  island  of  Trini- 
dad and  Tierra  Firme,  he  proceeded  to  a 
place  about  ninety  leagues  up  the  Orinoco. 
Here,  what  with  fighting  with  the  Caribs, 
and  the  inclemency  of  the  climate,  the 
plague  of  mosquitoes  and  other  insects, 
many  of  his  followers  soon  perished.  The 
others,  weakened  by  famine  and  disease  and 
unable  to  offer  any  resistance  to  the  hostile, 
85 


THE  QUEST  OF  EL  DORADO 

natives,  eventually  fell  victims  to  their  re- 
lentless enemies.  Only  one  Spaniard — 
Juan  Martin  de  Albujar — escaped  with  his 
life,  and  then  only  after  a  long  captivity  in 
the  wilds  of  Guiana. 


CHAPTER  VI 

EXPEDITION  OF  GONSALO  XIMENES  DE 
QUESADA 

THE  last  two  expeditions,  that  had  cost 
so  many  lives  and  so  much  treasure,  were 
not  the  only  ones  which  were  organized  at 
this  time  to  discover  the  coveted  land  of  El 
Dorado.  While  Pedro  de  Silva  was  pre- 
paring in  Spain  for  his  first  expedition,  a 
similar  enterprise  was  being  organized  in 
New  Granada,  and  by  no  less  a  personage 
than  the  conqueror  of  that  country,  Gon- 
salo  Ximenes  de  Quesada.  For  no  sooner 
had  word  been  received  in  Bogota  of  Silva's 
intentions  and  of  his  appointment  as  gover- 
nor of  Nueva  Estremadura  than  there  was 
among  all  classes  the  most  intense  excite- 
ment. The  region  of  which  Silva  had  been 
made  governor  was  claimed  by  New  Gra- 
87 


THE  QUEST  OF  EL  DORADO 

nada,  and  its  citizens  felt  that  they  were 
being  deprived  of  a  portion  of  their  territory. 
If  Venezuela  today  were  to  take  possession 
of  a  part  of  Colombia,  the  excitement  could 
not  be  greater  than  it  was  when  the  people 
of  Bogota  first  learned  of  Silva's  appoint- 
ment to  the  governorship  of  the  lands  to  the 
east  of  the  Cordilleras.  And  the  one  who 
felt  most  aggrieved  was  the  veteran  Con- 
quistador, the  Licentiate  Ximenes  de  Que- 
sada.  As  conqueror  of  New  Granada,  he 
claimed  all  the  territory  to  the  east  of 
Bogota  for  a  distance  of  four  hundred 
leagues  between  the  river  Pauto  on  the  north 
of  the  Papamene  on  the  south.  This  em- 
braced the  greater  part  of  the  continent 
north  of  the  Amazon  and  included,  too,  as 
all  then  agreed,  the  famous  land  of  El  Dora- 
do. As  to  the  existence  of  such  a  region 
and  of  the  Gilded  Chieftain,  who  was  then 
attracting  even  more  attention  than  ever 
before,  Quesada  seems  to  have  entertained 
88 


GONSALO  X.  DE  QUESADA 

no  doubt  whatever.  Such  being  the  case,  he 
could  not  brook  the  idea  of  anyone  else  ap- 
propriating what  he  regarded  as  the  most 
valuable  asset  of  his  conquest.  Pedro  de 
Silva,  while  on  his  way  with  Martin  de 
Proveda  from  Chachapoyas  to  Bogota,  had 
been  told  by  the  Indians  of  the  existence  of 
a  region  beyond  their  own  on  the  Meta  and 
the  Baraguan — one  of  the  many  names  of 
the  Orinoco — which  was  peopled  by  tribes 
who  were  so  rich  that  all  the  service  of  their 
houses  was  of  silver  and  gold.  These  and 
many  similar  stories,1  coupled  with  the  re- 
ports of  the  expeditions  which  had  been 
made  by  Diego  de  Ordaz  and  Alonzo  de 
Herrera  up  the  Orinoco  and  the  Meta  and 
by  Hohermuth  and  Von  Hutten  across  the 
llanos  to  the  east  of  the  Andes,  all  conspired 
to  excite  anew  the  cupidity  of  those  who 
were  longing  for  new  adventures  and  were 

1  Padre  Simon,  Op.  cit.,  Tom.  I,  p.  349- 

89 


THE  QUEST  OF  EL  DORADO 

but  waiting  for  a  leader  in  whom  they  had 
confidence. 

Quesada,  the  hero  of  a  hundred  battles 
and  the  successful  commander  in  one  of  the 
most  extraordinary  campaigns  in  the  his- 
tory of  the  Conquest,  was  their  man.  The 
fact  that  his  brother,  Fernan  Perez  de 
Quesada,  had  eighteen  years  before  endured 
such  hardships  and  lost  all  he  possessed  in 
search  of  the  Gilded  Man,  and  that  many 
other  enterprises,  organized  with  the  same 
end  in  view,  had  met  with  nothing  but  mis- 
ery and  disaster,  far  from  checking  his 
ardor,  which  was  still  as  undamped  as  when 
he  led  his  gallant  band  from  the  valley  of 
the  Magdalena  to  the  plateau  of  Cundina- 
marca,  seemed  an  incentive  to  spur  him  on  to 
achieve  what  others  had  failed  to  accomplish. 

In  1579,   Castellanos  tells  us,   Quesada 

took  his  departure  from  Bogota  with  three 

hundred  Spanish  soldiers,  fifteen  hundred 

Indians  and  a  large  number  of  negroes,  six 

90 


THE  LICENTIATE,  GONSALO  XIMENES  DE  QUESADA,  CONQUEROR  OF 
NEW  GRANADA  AND  ONE  OP  THOSE  WHO  WENT  IN  QUEST  OF 
EL  DORADO 


GONSALO  X.  DE  QUESADA 

hundred  cows,  eight  hundred  swine,  eleven 
hundred  horses,  and  all  the  equipment  neces- 
sary for  a  long  campaign.  Among  those 
who  accompanied  him  were  many  of  noble 
lineage,  who,  as  the  old  chronicler  informs 
us,  were  willing  to  leave  a  life  of  ease  and 
luxury  for  one  of  untold  hardships  and  to 
exchange  the  certain  for  the  uncertain  and 
unknown.  Castellanos,  who  had  served  un- 
der Quesada  in  his  conquest  of  New  Gra- 
nada and  who  was  personally  acquainted 
with  many  who  took  part  in  this  enterprise 
in  quest  of  El  Dorado,  in  prefacing  his  ac- 
count of  the  expedition  deplores  the  cupidity 
and  folly  of  those  who,  having  a  competency, 
do  not  hesitate  to  leave  their  homes  and  ex- 
pose not  only  their  own  lives  but  also  those 
of  their  families  by  embarking  in  perilous 
and  bootless  ventures. 

"To  persuade  idle  and  unmarried  men, 
lazy  vagabonds  who  neither  have  nor  desire 
93 


THE  QUEST  OF  EL  DORADO 

honest  occupation,  to  take  part  in  such  en- 
terprises, would  be  tolerable,  but  it  is  wrong 
to  incite  married  men,  with  their  wives  and 
children,  as  was  then  the  case,  to  follow  the 
flair  of  a  land  abounding  in  riches.  Thus 
moved  by  false  reports,  married  Spanish  and 
mestizo,  women  joined  this  miserable  ex- 
pedition in  which  nearly  all  perished.  I  do 
not  w^sh  to  believe  that  their  husbands  took 
them  along  to  get  rid  of  them,  but  rather  to 
think  that  they  were  misled  by  vain  promises 
and  delusive  hopes  which  issued  in  dread- 
ful catastrophes."  2 

Crossing  the  eastern  Cordilleras,  the  ex- 
peditioners  proceeded  to  the  pueblo  of  San 
Juan  de  los  Llanos,  which  had  previously 
supplied  food  and  shelter  to  other  adven- 
turers in  search  of  gold  and  the  land  of  the 
Gilded  King.  Soon  after  leaving  this  place 

2  "Historia  del  Nuevo  Reino  de  Granada/'  Tom.  II, 
p.  222,  publicada  por  primera  vez  por  D.  Antonio  Paz 
y  Media,  Madrid  (1886). 

94 


JUAN  DE  CASTELLANOS,  AUTHOR  OP  ELEGIAS  DE  "VARONES 
ILUSTRES  DE  INDIAS,"  AND  "HlSTOUIA  DEL  NUEVO  REINO  DE 
GRANADA" 

He  was  a  soldier  under  the  Conquistador,  Gonsalo  Ximenes  de 

8uesada.    and    is   our    chief   authority   for   the    quest    of   the 
ilded  Chieftain   by   the  conqueror  of  New  Granada.     After 
many  years'  service  in  the  army,  he  became  a  priest  and  had 
charge*  of  a  parish  in  Tunja,  New  Granada,  where  he  died  at 
an  advanced  age. 


GONSALO  X.  DE  QUESADA 

they  were  exposed  to  great  danger  in  one 
of  those  terrific  prairie  fires  which  frequent- 
ly sweep  over  the  grass-covered  llanos  of 
this  part  of  South  America.  Some  days 
after  this  event  they  reached  the  rivers  Gua- 
viare  and  Guaracare.  Here  they  began  to 
suffer  from  sickness  and  lack  of  food.  They 
still,  however,  continued  their  course  toward 
the  land  of  the  Omaguas,  of  which  their 
guide,  Diego  Soleto,  who  had  taken  part  in 
Proveda's  expedition  through  this  region, 
had  given  them  such  glowing  accounts.  But 
they  had  not  proceeded  far  before  the  win- 
ter began.  This  added  greatly  to  their  dis- 
tress. The  incessant  rains  which  charac- 
terize this  season  soon  converted  the  country 
through  which  they  were  marching  into  a 
region  of  impassable  morasses  and  lagoons. 
This  augmented  the  number  of  sick  men  and 
animals,  and  soon  the  line  of  march  was 
strewn  with  dead  Indians  and  horses;  with 
saddles,  clothing,  jewels,  trinkets — all  of 
97 


THE  QUEST  OF  EL  DORADO 

which  were  abandoned  by  their  owners,  who 
were  so  reduced  by  famine  and  disease  that 
they  were  scarcely  able  to  move. 

To  remain  longer  in  this  inundated  region 
meant  certain  death.  They  were,  therefore, 
obliged  to  drag  themselves  to  higher  land, 
and  to  remain  there  until  the  waters  should 
subside.  After  numerous  fruitless  attempts 
they  finally  found  a  suitable  place,  an  Indian 
settlement,  where  they  found  sufficient 
maize  and  yuca  to  keep  them  from  starva- 
tion. But  here  they  were  without  salt,  for 
the  natives  not  only  never  used  it,  but  had 
never  even  heard  of  it.3  The  absence  of  this 
food  ingredient  greatly  aggravated  their 
miserable  condition  and  was  the  cause  of 
various  diseases.  Some  became  almost 
blind,  others  deaf,  others,  still,  were  covered 
with  sores  filled  with  worms,  for  which  they 
could  find  no  remedy,  while  yet  others  were 

3  Que  nimca  comen  sal  eternamente^  ni  della  por 
alii  tienen  noticia.  Castellanos,  op.  cit.  p.  241. 

98 


GONSALO  X.  DE  QUESADA 

afflicted  with  an  intolerable  itching,  which 
never  allowed  them  a  moment's  rest,  day  or 
night.  So  great,  indeed,  was  their  suffering 
that  many  became  mad  and  died  terrible 
deaths.  And  all  this  time,  even  in  the  ele- 
vated position  in  which  they  encamped, 
there  was  a  continual  downpour — agua  del 
cielo  y  agua  de  la  tierra — so  that  the  wretch- 
ed wanderers  could  neither  dry  their  clothes 
nor  have  a  moment's  repose. 

Losing  all  hope  and  seeing  themselves  in 
face  of  certain  death,  many  deserted  and  en- 
deavored to  make  their  way  homeward.  A 
few  were  successful,  but  a  large  number 
perished  in  the  trackless  wilderness  either 
from  starvation  or  at  the  hands  of  ferocious 
savages.  Others  mutinied  and  attempted 
the  life  of  their  leader,  who  they  said  was 
conducting  them  to  inevitable  destruction. 
But  this  attempt,  which  was  foiled,  was, 
Castellanos  assures  us,  rather  an  act  of  de- 
spair than  of  malice.  Taking  pity  on  his 
101 


THE  QUEST  OF  EL  DORADO 

suffering  and  dejected  followers,  Quesada 
announced  that  all  who  desired  to  return  to 
their  homes  were  at  liberty  to  do  so.  The 
majority  of  his  men  eagerly  embraced  this 
opportunity  to  withdraw  from  the  depths 
of  the  dark  and  dismal  forest,  in  which  they 
had  so  long  been  wandering,  to  a  land  where 
they  might  once  more  have  a  view  of  the 
clear  blue  sky  overhead.  After  this  the 
adelantado's  force  was  reduced  to  forty-five 
men.  With  these  heroic  spirits  he  continued 
his  journey  and  eventually  reached  a  point 
near  the  site  of  the  present  pueblo  of  San 
Fernando  de  Atabapo,  at  the  confluence  of 
the  Guaviare  and  the  Orinoco.  But  the  day 
at  length  arrived  when  the  intrepid  leader 
was  forced  to  realize  that  he  was  at  the  end 
of  his  resources,  and  that  his  expedition, 
which  had  departed  from  Bogota  with  such 
a  grand  display  and  with  such  exalted  hopes, 
I  was  a  failure.  Accordingly,  after  three 
years  of  indescribable  hardships;  of  forced 
102 


GONSALO  X.  DE  QUESADA 

marches  in  dense,  tangled  jungles,  through 
which  they  had  to  cut  their  way  with 
machetes;  of  ceaseless  conflicts  with  hostile 
savages,  who  burned  their  villages  and  pro- 
visions on  the  approach  of  the  Spaniards; 
after  enduring  all  the  agonies  of  famine 
and  tropical  disease;  after  battling  against 
the  inclemency  of  an  enervating  climate 
and  the  clouds  of  noxious  insects  that  tor- 
mented them  day  and  night,  without  inter- 
mission, the  hapless  adventurers,  who  were 
now  only  twenty-five  in  number,  faced 
about  and  began  their  long  and  arduous 
march  toward  Bogota. 

The  net  results  of  this  undertaking,  one 
of  the  best  equipped  that  ever  went  in 
search  of  the  phantom  which  had  lured  so 
many  to  destruction,  may  be  told  in  a  few 
words.  Of  the  three  hundred  Spaniards 
who  had  embarked  in  the  enterprise,  only 
seventy-four  escaped,  and  of  these  the 
greater  number  died  of  incurable  diseases 
103 


THE  QUEST  OF  EL  DORADO 

contracted  during  their  wanderings  in  the 
pestilent  climate  of  the  sultry  lowlands.  Of 
the  fifteen  hundred  Indians,  there  remained 
only  four,  and  of  the  eleven  hundred  horses 
there  were  but  eighteen.  The  expense  en- 
tailed in  equipping  the  enterprise  amounted 
to  more  than  two  hundred  thousand  pesos 
in  gold,4  the  equivalent,  in  our  money,  of 
nearly  $2,000,000. 

But  a  more  regrettable  loss  than  that  of 
money  was  occasioned  by  the  death  of 
Padre  Francisco  Medrano,  who  succumbed 
to  an  attack  of  fever  which  he  contracted 
in  the  miasmatic  jungles  of  the  lowlands 
through  which  lay  the  line  of  march.  This 
accomplished  Franciscan  friar  had  accom- 
panied Quesada  as  the  chronicler  of  the  ex- 
pedition, and,  had  it  not  been  for  his  un- 
timely death,  he  would,  to  judge  by  his  un- 
completed history  of  New  Granada,  which 

4  Padre  Simon  says  the  amount  exceeded  three  hun- 
dred thousand  gold  pesos. 

104 


COAT  OP  MAIL  AND  SPUR  OP  GONSALO  XIMEXES  DE  QUESADA 

Also  the  sword  and  dagger  of  Nicholas  Federmann,  the  distin- 
guished rival  of  the  Spanish  Conquistador.  Relics  on  exhibi- 
tion at  the  National  Museum  of  Bogota. 


GONSALO  X.  DE  QUESADA 

served  as  the  basis  of  Padre  Simon's  price- 
less work,  have  given  us  a  story  of  adventure 
of  as  thrilling  interest  as  anything  in  litera- 
ture. Unfortunately  all  his  papers  regard- 
ing Quesada's  enterprise  have  been  lost,  and 
we  must  now  be  satisfied  with  the  brief  but 
graphic  account  of  his  expedition  which  is 
contained  in  the  "Historia  del  Nuevo  Reino 
de  Granada"  of  Juan  de  Castellanos. 

And  what  did  Quesada  and  his  followers 
receive  in  return  for  such  a  sacrifice  of 
treasure  and  human  life?  Absolutely  noth- 
ing. They  did  not  find  the  slightest  trace 
of  the  Gilded  Chieftain  nor  the  faintest  in- 
dication of  the  rich  and  populous  country 
to  which  their  guide,  Diego  Soleto,  had 
promised  to  lead  them.  The  region  through 
which  they  passed  was  for  the  most  part  al- 
most depopulated.  Only  here  and  there 
did  the  adventurers  come  across  a  few 
straggling  huts,  which  were  tenanted  by  a 
small  number  of  wretched  savages.  The 
107 


THE  QUEST  OF  EL  DORADO 

largest  settlement  they  found  during  their 
three  years'  wanderings  consisted  of  about 
thirty  filthy  hovels,  and  from  these  they 
were  soon  driven  by  the  downpour  that  in- 
undated the  country  in  which  they  were  lo- 
cated. The  expedition  was  for  each  and 
all  a  disastrous  failure. 

Quesada  had  risked  his  health  and  life 
and  fortune  on  the  venture.  He  had  lost 
his  health  and  fortune,  but  his  life  was 
spared  for  a  short  while  longer.  Still,  mar- 
velous to  relate,  in  spite  of  his  awful  experi- 
ences and  of  those  who,  like  him,  had  sac- 
rificed everything  in  the  frenzied  attempts 
to  discover  the  land  of  El  Dorado,  his  be- 
lief in  the  existence  of  this  mythical  terri- 
tory was  still  unshaken,  and  he  regarded 
this  region  as  the  most  valuable  heritage  he 
could  transmit  to  his  heirs.  Before  his  de- 
mise, in  Mariquita,  near  the  Magdalena, 
where  he  spent  the  last  days  of  his  life, 
108 


GONSALO  X.  DE  QUESADA 

he  constituted  Antonio  de  Berrio,  who  had 
married  his  sister's  daughter,  his  heir  and 
the  governor  of  the  vast  region  between  the 
Pauto  and  the  Papamene. 


CHAPTER  VII 

EXPEDITIONS  OF  ANTONIO  DE  BERRIO, 
THE  FRANCISCAN  LAY  BROTHERS  AND 
NUFLO  DE  CHAVES 

AFTER  the  tremendous  failures  that  had 
signalized  the  expeditions  of  the  two  Que- 
sadas  in  search  of  the  Gilded  King,  one 
would  suppose  that  it  would  have  been  im- 
possible to  find  again  anyone  who  would  be 
so  foolish  as  to  propose  a  new  expedition  in 
quest  of  El  Dorado.  This,  however,  was  far 
from  being  the  case.  The  multitude  declared 
that  all  previous  failures  had  been  due  to  the 
fact  that  the  expeditions  already  mentioned 
had  not  sought  El  Dorado  in  his  proper  ter- 
ritory, and  that  the  quest  should  be  continued 
in  a  region  which  had  not  yet  been  explored. 
It  was  now  clear  that  the  land  of  gold  and 
silver  was  not  to  be  found  on  the  Andean 
plateaus  or  in  the  llanos  skirting  the  eastern 
110 


** 

P.A.U.         7O 


ROUTE   FOLLOWED   BY   ANTONIO   DE   BERRIO    IN    QUEST   OF   EL  DORADO 


DE  BERRIO  AND  DE  CHAVES 

Cordilleras.  This  had  been  proved  by  the 
German  expeditions  from  Coro  and  by  the 
explorations  of  Proveda,  Silva,  and  the 
Quesadas.  But  this,  it  was  contended,  was 
not  conclusive  against  the  existence  of  the 
Gilded  King.  It  merely  demonstrated  that 
it  was  necessary  to  institute  a  search  for  him 
elsewhere,  for  people  were  fully  convinced 
that  it  was  only  a  question  of  time  until  the 
searchers  for  El  Dorado  would  be  rewarded 
by  the  discovery  of  the  richest  land  and  the 
wealthiest  monarch  in  the  New  World  and 
by  gaining  the  possession  of  that  splendor 
in  the  wilds  of  which  they  had  so  long 
dreamed — the  palaces  and  pleasure  domes  of 
that  gorgeous  city  to  which 

Did  visible  guardians  of  the  earth's  great  heart 
Bring  their  choice  tributes  culled  from  many  a 

mine 

Diamond  and  jasper  and  porphyry  and  the  art 

Of  figured  chrysolite;  nor  silver  shine 
There  wanted,  nor  the  mightier  power  of  gold. 
113 


THE  QUEST  OF  EL  DORADO 

Antonio  de  Berrio  also  was  evidently  of 
this  opinion,  for,  shortly  after  his  uncle's 
death,  he  organized  an  expedition  for  the 
conquest  of  the  region  between  the  Pauto 
and  the  Papamene,  of  which  he  had  inherited 
the  governorship.  Somewhere  withir  these 
limits  and  the  mouth  of  the  Orinoco  was,  he 
doubted  not,  the  land  of  El  Dorado.  But 
where  was  it?  That  was  the  question  to 
which  he  was  determined  to  find  an  answer. 
As  it  had  not  been  discovered  in  the  west 
or  south,  in  spite  of  the  numerous  explora- 
tions which  had  been  made  in  these  direc- 
tions, he  concluded  that  it  must  lie  toward 
the  east.  He  was  confirmed  in  this  view  by 
reports,  already  referred  to,  that  had  been 
circulated  by  those  who  had  taken  part  in 
Proveda's  enterprise.  According  to  them, 
the  Indians  of  the  regions  through  which 
they  had  passed  on  their  way  to  New  Gra- 
nada had  told  them  of  a  rich  people  and  a 
114 


DE  BERRIO  AND  DE  CHAVES 

land1  abounding  in  silver  and  gold  on  the 
borders  of  the  Meta  and  the  Baraguan. 
Now  the  Baraguan  was  the  old  Indian 
name  for  the  Orinoco  between  the  mouth  of 
the  Guaviare  and  that  of  the  Apure.  To  the 
east,  therefore,  he  would  go. 

It  was  in  1584  that  Berrio  left  the  table- 
land of  New  Granada  for  the  valley  of  Bar- 
aguan. Crossing  the  Andes  by  way  of  the 
pueblo  of  Chita,  where  he  had  an  encomi- 
enda,  he  descended  the  Pauto  and  the  Cas- 
anare,  by  which  he  entered  the  Meta.  Con- 
tinuing his  voyage,  he  eventually  entered 
the  Baraguan,  and,  after  voyaging  down  it 
for  some  distance,  he  disembarked  and  es- 
tablished his  headquarters.  From  this  point 
he  began  to  reconnoiter  the  adjacent  coun- 
try. Shortly  afterwards  he  learned  from  an 
Indian,  whom  he  had  treated  with  special 
consideration,  of  the  existence,  at  no  great 
distance  from  where  they  then  were,  of  the 

1  Padre  Simon,  Tom.  I,  p.  349. 
115 


THE  QUEST  OF  EL  DORADO 

rich  and  auriferous  lands  around  the  great 
lake  of  Manoa.  This  report  at  once  revived 
the  drooping  spirits  of  Berrio's  men,  who 
had  begun  to  experience  the  ill  effects  of  the 
countless  hardships  to  which  they  had  been 
exposed  in  traversing  the  disease-breeding 
valleys  of  the  Casanare  and  the  Baraguan. 
The  adventurers  now  felt  sure  that  they  were 
on  the  right  track,  but  after  three  years' 
futile  wandering  through  dark  forests  and 
over  desert  plains,  after  enduring  all  the 
horrors  of  famine  and  seeing  their  numbers 
decimated  by  disease  and  the  poisoned  ar- 
rows of  hostile  savages,  they  were  at  length 
compelled  to  return  to  their  homes  in  New 
Granada. 

But,  notwithstanding  Berrio's  dreadful 
experiences  during  this  long  expedition  in  a 
wild  and  unexplored  region,  it  was  not  long 
before  he  determined  to  make  a  second  at- 
tempt to  achieve  success.  Accompanied  by 
a  resolute  band  of  adventurers,  he  again 
116 


REPUTED  SCENE  AT  MANOA  OB  DORADO 

Capt.  Keymis,  one  of  Raleigh's  companions  in  a  later  expedition, 
refers  to  the  Essekebe  River  shown  here,  and  also  speaks  of 
the  Indians  carrying  boats  and  cargoes  overland  to  Lake 
Foponowini. 


DE  BERRIO  AND  DE  CHAVES 

crossed  the  sierra  and,  after  surmounting 
many  difficulties,  he  finally  reached  the 
lower  Orinoco,  where  he  founded  the  town 
of  Santo  Tome  de  Guiana,  near  the  con- 
fluence of  the  Caroni  and  the  Orinoco.  After 
this  he  proceeded  to  the  island  of  Trinidad, 
where  he  laid  the  foundations  of  another 
town,  known  as  San  Jose  de  Oruno. 

Having  in  these  two  towns  bases  for  fu- 
ture operations,  the  governor  now  turned 
his  attention  anew  to  the  quest  of  the  Gilded 
King,  regarding  whom  and  the  rich  lands, 
over  which  he  was  said  to  bear  rule,  Berrio 
received  daily  the  most  extravagant  reports. 
The  region  in  question  was  said  to  be  to  the 
southeast  of  Santo  Tome  and  was  called 
Manoa,  from  the  name  of  a  large  lake  lo- 
cated in  its  midst.  It  was  further  averred 
that  the  cacique  to  whom  it  was  subject  was 
accustomed,  all  bespangled  with  gold,  to 
offer  sacrifice  in  this  lake,  whence  his  prov- 
ince, like  that  of  the  Omaguas,  began  to  be 
119 


THE  QUEST  OF  EL  DORADO 

called  El  Dorado.  The  home  of  the  Gilded 
Chieftain  was  now  transferred  from  the  ele- 
vated plateau  of  Cundinamarca  to  the  low- 
lands of  southeastern  Guiana;  from  Gua- 
tavita  to  Manoa ;  from  one  end  of  the  conti- 
nent to  the  other.  The  lying  statements 
about  this  mythical  personage,  Padre  Simon 
declares,  were  put  in  circulation  by  the  as- 
tute Indians,  who  wished  to  inveigle  the 
Spaniards  from  the  settlements  they  had 
made,  or  else  they  were  the  invention  of  the 
devil,  who  desired  to  lure  the  adventurers  to 
certain  destruction.2 

But  whatever  was  the  origin  of  these  re- 
ports, the  Spaniards  had  no  hesitation  in  ac- 
cepting them  as  true.  Their  quarry,  so  long 
and  eagerly  sought,  was  at  last  located  be- 
yond peradventure,  and  it  only  remained  for 
them  to  make  themselves  masters  of  the 

2  Todo  embuste  e  invencion  de  los  indios  para  echar 
los  espanoles  de  sus  tierras  o  traza  del  demonic  para 
que  pereciera  tanta  gente  espanola.  Op.  cit.  Tom.  I, 
p.  361. 

120 


DE  BERRIO  AND  DE  CHAVES 

golden  region  that  was  so  near  at  hand.  Ber- 
rio,  especially,  was  more  than  elated,  for  he 
felt  that  he  was  soon  to  enter  upon  the  glo- 
rious inheritance  which  had  so  long  been  the 
object  of  his  ceaseless  toil.  In  order,  how- 
ever, to  be  prepared  for  all  emergencies, 
and  to  make  sure  of  getting  possession  of 
the  land  of  untold  treasure,  he  bethought 
him  of  the  necessity  of  increasing  the  force 
under  his  command.  He,  accordingly,  com- 
missioned his  campmaster,  Domingo  De 
Vera,  to  go  to  Spain  for  men  and  money 
to  guarantee  the  success  of  the  contemplated 
expedition  to  Manoa. 

He  could  not  have  made  a  better  choice, 
for  De  Vera  was  not  only  a  man  of  rare  in- 
telligence, but  he,  moreover,  possessed  the 
faculty  of  presenting  any  scheme  in  which  he 
was  interested  in  the  most  plausible  light. 
If  facts  were  not  available,  he  did  not  hesi- 
tate to  draw  on  his  imagination,  which  al- 
ways stood  him  in  good  stead  when  promot- 
121 


THE  QUEST  OF  EL  DORADO 

I 

ing  an  enterprise  like  the  one  in  which  he 
was  then  engaged.  According  to  Berrio's 
instructions,  De  Vera  was  to  bring  three 
hundred  men  and  no  more.  But  so  success- 
ful was  he  in  exciting  interest  in  the  expe- 
dition to  El  Dorado,  which  now  meant  a 
province  as  well  as  a  gilded  chieftain,  as 
originally,  that  crowds  flocked  to  him  from 
all  quarters  begging  to  be  allowed  to*  share 
in  an  enterprise  in  which  fortune  and  glory 
were  certainties.  To  excite  the  cupidity  and 
enthusiasm  of  the  multitude,  De  Vera  ex- 
hibited gold,  jewels,  and  uncut  emeralds 
which  he  had  brought  from  New  Granada, 
and  assured  them  that  the  land  whose  con- 
quest was  in  view  abounded  in  these  treas- 
ures to  an  incredible  extent. 

With  these  and  similar  alluring  tales  he 
found  no  difficulty  in  securing  volunteers  for 
the  enterprise,  which  was  to  bring  inestima- 
ble wealth  to  all  who  should  have  the  good 
fortune  to  have  part  in  it.  Wherever  he  and 
122 


INDIANS    NEAR   MANOA    SMELTING   GOLD  AND   CASTING    IT   INTO 
INGOTS,  ACCORDING  TO  REPORTS  BROUGHT  TO  THOSE  IN  QUEST 
OP  EL  DORADO 


DE  BERRIO  AND  DE  CHAVES 

his  agents  went  they  were  besieged  by  ap- 
plicants from  all  classes  of  society,  who  were 
eager  to  go  without  delay  to  the  marvelous 
region  of  Manoa.  Gentle  and  simple,  mem- 
bers of  the  court  and  the  royal  council  of 
the  Indies,  farmers  and  tradesmen,  veterans 
who  had  fought  in  the  wars  of  Italy  and 
Flanders,  gathered  about  De  Vera  and  his 
representatives  and  offered  them  large  sums 
of  money  for  the  privilege  of  being  allowed 
to  embark  in  the  seductive  enterprise.  Men 
who  had  comfortable  homes  sold  them,  to- 
gether with  all  their  possessions,  deeming 
them  as  dross  in  comparison  with  what  they 
were  sure  to  find  in  Manoa. 

Spain  became  El  Dorado-mad,  and  the 
craze  started  by  De  Vera  assumed  such  pro- 
portions that  an  old  chronicler  avers  that  it 
would  then  have  been  possible  entirely  to 
depopulate  La  Mancha  and  Estremadura 
and  the  kingdoms  of  Toledo  and  Castile. 
And  as  for  money  for  equipping  the  expe- 
125 


THE  QUEST  OF  EL  DORADO 

dition,  it  poured  in  from  all  directions.  The 
Spanish  court  alone  contributed  seventy 
thousand  ducats,  more,  Padre  Simon  de- 
clares, than  the  sum  expended  by  the  Crown 
of  Castile  for  the  discovery  of  the  New 
World.3 

When  De  Vera  sailed  from  San  Lucar 
in  February,  1595,  he  was  the  commander 
of  an  imposing  fleet  with  more  than  two 
thousand  souls  aboard,4  more  than  twenty 

3  J.   B.    Thatcher,   in   his   "Christopher   Columbus, 
His  Life,  His  Work,  His  Remains,"  Vol.  I,  p.  490, 
estimates  the  cost  of  the  first  expedition  of  Colum- 
bus at  $4,5  60  of  our  money,  if  calculated  on  a  silver 
basis,   and  at   $7,203   if  computed  on   a   gold  basis. 
But  the  purchasing  power  of  these  sums  four  cen- 
turies ago  was  eight  to  ten  times  as  great  as  they  are 
today.      Estimating   on   the    same   basis,   the    amount 
contributed  to  De  Vera's  expedition  by  the  Castilian 
court,  we  find  that  it  was  about  seventeen  times  as 
great  as   that  which  was   received  by  Columbus   for 
his  epoch-making  discovery  of  the  New  World. 

4  Y  eran  muchas  mas  cuando  desembarcaron,  porque, 
como  iban  muchas  mujeres  parieron  muchas   en  los 
navios.      Padre  Simon,  ut  sup.,  p.   363. 

126 


DE  BERRIO  AND  DE  CHAVES 

times  as  many  as  Columbus  had  with  him 
when  he  set  sail  in  the  "sea  of  darkness"  on 
that  memorable  voyage  which  gave  to  Cas- 
tile and  Leon  a  new  world.  Many  of  these 
were  women  and  children,  for  the  fathers 
of  families  had  been  so  fascinated  by  the 
stories  they  had  heard  about  the  province 
of  El  Dorado  that  they  thought  they  were 
going  to  a  sort  of  terrestrial  paradise. 

But  how  soon  they  were  disenchanted! 
Scarcely  had  they  set  foot  on  the  island  of 
Trinidad  when  their  hardships  and  suffer- 
ings began.  The  city  of  San  Jose  proved 
to  be  but  a  small  village,  composed  of  a  few 
huts,  and  barely  adequate  to  shelter  its  few 
inhabitants.  The  newcomers  we^e,  there^ 
fore,  until  temporary  sheds  could  be  erected, 
exposed  to  the  drenching  rains  and  the  pros- 
trating heat  of  the  tropics.  And,  to  add  to 
their  distress,  it  was  not  long  before  they 
began  to  experience  the  effects  of  famine, 
for  the  only  provisions  available  were  those 
127 


THE  QUEST  OF  EL  DORADO 

they  had  brought  with  them  from  Spain, 
and,  to  make  matters  worse,  a  great  part  of 
those,  in  consequence  of  the  humid,  steaming 
climate,  soon  became  unfit  for  use. 

Great,  however,  as  were  the  miseries  of 
those  who  remained  in  Trinidad,  they  were 
incomparably  less  than  the  calamities  of 
those  who  went  to  Santo  Tome,  where  Gov- 
ernor Berrio  was  awaiting  their  arrival  be- 
fore completing  arrangements  for  the  ex- 
pedition to  Manoa.  The  so-called  city  of 
Santo  Tome,  like  San  Jose,  was  but  a  small 
town  of  hastily  constructed  sheds  and  cabins, 
barely  sufficient  to  shield  their  inmates  from 
the  inclemency  of  a  tropical  climate.  But 
to  reach  this  place,  forty  leagues  up  the 
Orinoco,  was  a  terrific  undertaking.  Instead 
of  going  thither  in  the  vessels  that  had 
brought  them  from  the  mother  country,  as 
they  might  easily  have  done,  they  ventured 
forth  in  small  canoes.  This  involved  a  long 
and  painful  struggle  of  thirty  days  against 
128 


From  De  Bry 


SPANISH    SOLDIERS    SENT   TO    RECONNOITER   AT   MANOA   PUT   TO 
DEATH  BY  THE  INDIANS 


DE  BERRIO  AND  DE  CHAVES 

the  billows  of  the  Gulf  of  Paria  and  the  im- 
petuous current  of  the  Orinoco.  Many  of 
the  adventurers  were  drowned  in  the  Ori- 
noco «or  met  most  frightful  deaths  at  the 
hands  of  the  Caribs,  who  were  lying  in  wait 
for  them.  Those  who  eventually  arrived  at 
their  destination  were  sent  with  as  little  de- 
lay as  possible  toward  the  south  to  take  pos- 
session of  the  land  of  El  Dorado,  which  they 
now  regarded  as  within  their  grasp.  But 
they  had  not  proceeded  far  on  their  jour- 
ney when  they  ran  short  of  provisions.  Even 
the  cassava  and  fruits,  which  they  were  at 
first  able  to  secure  from  the  Indians,  now 
failed  them.  The  wily  savages  had  drawn 
the  fortune-seekers  into  the  wilderness, 
knowing  well  that  famine  and  disease  would 
soon  do  their  work  without  resort  to  arms. 
In  a  short  time  the  Indians  saw  the  invaders 
so  prostrated  by  hunger  and  malignant 
fevers  that  they  gathered  their  concealed 
forces  and  almost  exterminated  them.  Of 
131 


THE  QUEST  OF  EL  DORADO 

the  three  hundred  who  had  but  a  short  time 
before  left  Santo  Tome,  with  the  assurance 
of  soon  reaching  the  great  capital  of  the 
Gilded  King,  only  thirty  returned,  and  of 
these  one-half  were  soon  in  their  graves  in 
consequence  of  the  incurable  diseases  which 
they  had  contracted  during  their  short  but 
calamitous  campaign. 

The  ranks  of  those  who  remained  in  Santo 
Tome  were  likewise  rapidly  decimated,  for 
it  was  not  long  until  a  plague — apparently 
yellow  fever — broke  out  and  made  the  most 
frightful  ravages  among  the  inhabitants 
who  were  already  almost  exhausted  by  sick- 
ness and  famine. 

With  neither  food  nor  medicine,  it  was 
impossible  to  offer  any  resistance  to  the 
dread  visitant.  Those  who  had  remained 
in  Trinidad  also  saw  their  ranks  rapidly 
thinned  by  disease  and  lack  of  means  of  sub- 
sistence. But  they  had,  writes  an  old  chron- 
icler, one  grim  advantage  over  their  hapless 
132 


DE  BERRIO  AND  DE  CHAVES 

brethren  in  Santo  Tome.  They  had  two 
forges,  which  they  had  brought  with  them 
for  the  purpose  of  repairing  their  arms  and 
tools.  These  they  used  for  heating  irons 
with  which  to  cauterize  the  wounds  of  those 
who  had  been  infected  by  poisonous  insects 
and  to  burn  off  the  toes  of  those  who  were 
suffering  from  the  gangrenous  sores  caused 
by  the  ubiquitous  pest  of  the  tropics — the 
flesh-penetrating  chigoe. 

Berrio's  quest  of  El  Dorado,  like  all  pre- 
ceding ones,  ended  in  disaster.  Shortly  after 
the  fatal  termination  of  the  expedition  to 
Manoa  he  died  in  Santo  Tome,  while  his 
lieutenant,  De  Vera,  soon  followed  him  to 
the  grave,  dying  at  San  Jose,  in  Trinidad, 
as  was  said  of  him,  "with  greater  sufferings 
than  patience." 

Thus  ended  Berrio's  pompously  heralded 

expedition  to  El  Dorado.    "It  was,"  writes 

Padre  Simon,  "like  the  statue  of  Nabucho- 

donosor,  beginning  with  a  head  of  gold  and 

133 


THE  QUEST  OF  EL  DORADO 

ending  with  feet  of  clay,  and  a  lamentable 
downfall.  God  grant  that  it  may  serve  as  a 
warning  and  as  a  disillusionment  for  those 
who  may  be  tempted  to  take  part  in  such  en- 
terprises in  the  future."  5 

The  old  friar's  desire  was  realized  so  far 
as  concerned  any  great  expeditions  of  the 
kind  that  were  thenceforth  organized  by 
Spaniards  or  conducted  under  Spanish  aus- 
pices. But  expeditions  on  a  smaller  scale 
were  of  frequent  occurrence  for  a  long  time 
afterwards.  Reference  must  be  made  to  one 
of  these,  because  it  was  as  remarkable  for 
the  simplicity  of  its  equipment  as  for  the 
small  number  of  those  who  took  part  in  it. 
It  is  known  in  the  annals  of  South  American 
discovery  as  El  Viaje  de  los  Legos  Francis- 
canos — The  Voyage  of  the  Franciscan  Lay 
Brothers — and  was  made  in  1637.  Accom- 
panied by  only  six  Spanish  soldiers  and  two 
Indians,  these  intrepid  men,  Fray  Domingo 

6  Ut  sup.,  p.  372. 


DE  BERRIO  AND  DE  CHAVES 

de  Brieva  and  Fray  Andres  de  Toledo, 
started  from  the  eastern  slope  of  the  Andes 
in  search  of  El  Dorado  and  the  Temple  of 
the  Sun.  And  with  no  preparation  what- 
ever, and  having  nothing  more  than  the 
clothes  on  their  backs  and  a  small  dugout, 
they  made  their  way  down  the  Napo  and 
the  Amazon,  subsisting  on  such  provisions 
as  they  could  find  on  their  way  or  obtain 
from  the  Indians.  And  during  this  long 
voyage,  which  a  century  before  Orellana  had 
been  able  to  make  only  after  incredible  dif- 
ficulties and  hardships,  they  never  encoun- 
tered any  danger  from  the  Indians  nor  did 
they  suffer  from  lack  of  means  of  subsist- 
ence. At  the  end  of  three  months  they  ar- 
rived at  Para,  near  the  mouth  of  the  Ama- 
zon, and  were  able  and  ready,  not  long  aft- 
erwards, to  conduct  the  Portuguese  captain, 
Pedro  Texeira,  on  his  famous  expedition 
from  Para  to  Quito.  The  friars,  like  all 
previous  adventurers,  failed  to  discover  any 
137 


THE  QUEST  OF  EL  DORADO 

trace  of  El  Dorado,  but,  unlike  their  prede- 
cessors, they  were  able  to  accomplish  their 
marvelous  enterprise  without  loss  of  life  and 
were  able  to  declare  on  their  return  that  dur- 
ing their  entire  journey  they  were  as  free 
from  danger  as  if  they  had  been  at  home  in 
their  own  convents.6 

Mention  should  also  be  made  of  an  early 
expedition  organized  in  1560  in  Asuncion, 
on  the  Rio  de  la  Plata,  by  Capt.  Nuflo  de 
Chaves.  It  is  worthy  of  notice  as  indicating 
how  widely  circulated  at  an  early  date  were 
the  reports  regarding  El  Dorado  and  how 
vague  and  conflicting  they  were  concerning 

6  Hicieron  su  viaj  e  durmiendo  todas  las  noches  en 
tierra  tan  seguros  como  si  estuvieran  en  sus  conventos 
sin  sucederles  cosa  adversa,  sino  todas  prosperas, 
todas  felices.  Fray  Diego  de  Cordoba  y  Salinas, 
"Cronica  de  la  Religiosisima  provincia  de  los  doce 
Apostles  del  Peru/'  Cap.  32-34,  Lima  (1651).  For 
an  account  of  this  remarkable  expedition,  see 
"Nuevo  Descubrimiento  del  Rio  del  Maranon  Llamado 
de  las  Amazonas,"  by  F.  Laureano  de  la  Cruz  (1653), 
first  published  at  Madrid  in  1900. 

138 


DE  BERRIO  AND  DE  CHAVES 

the  location  of  the  region  where  this  fabu- 
lous chieftain  was  supposed  to  have  his 
home.  After  a  vain  pursuit  of  the  Gilded 
King  in  the  territories  watered  by  the  Pil- 
comayo  and  the  Paraguay  the  gallant  cap- 
tain, who  had  previously  won  distinction  by 
his  numerous  achievements  in  this  part  of 
South  America,  finally  arrived  at  the  upper 
reaches  of  the  Mamore,  in  the  present  Re- 
public of  Bolivia,  where  the  expedition  dis- 
banded without  accomplishing  any  more 
than  had  similar  undertakings  in  the  north- 
ern part  of  the  continent.7 

7  "Descripcion  de  las  Indias  Occidentales"  de  An- 
tonio Herrera,  Cap.  XXI,  Madrid  (1730). 


CHAPTER  VIII 

EXPEDITION  OF  SIR  WALTER  RALEIGH 

BY  one  of  those  striking  coincidences  that 
mark  the  progress  of  maritime  discovery,  as 
well  as  that  of  scientific  invention,  the  very 
month  which  saw  De  Vera's  fleet  set  sail 
from  San  Lucar  also  witnessed  Sir  Walter 
Raleigh's  famous  expedition  starting  from 
Plymouth  and  having  in  view  the  same  ob- 
ject as  the  adventurers  from  Spain.  In  some 
respects  this  English  enterprise  was  one  of 
the  most  extraordinary  episodes  in  the  an- 
nals of  American  exploration  and  discovery, 
as  in  its  final  results  it  was  one  of  the  most 
tragic.  It  is  sometimes  asserted  that  only 
the  Spaniards  could  have  had  part  in  such 
Quixotic  undertakings  as  the  pursuit  of  the 
Gilded  Man,  but  here  we  have  one  whom 
140 


SIR  WALTER  RALEIGH 


SIR  WALTER  RALEIGH 

Englishmen  are  wont  to  laud  as  "The  great 
Raleigh,"  as  "The  first  apostle  and  martyr 
of  the  British  Colonial  Empire,"  as  "The 
founder  of  the  greater  England  across  the 
seas,"  and  as  one  who  was  as  distinguished 
for  shrewdness  in  affairs  as  he  was  eminent 
in  clear-sighted  political  wisdom. 

Be  this  as  it  may,  neither  he  nor  others  of 
his  countrymen,  likewise  remarkable  for 
business  acumen,  were  proof  against  the  glit- 
tering mirage  of  El  Dorado,  which  had  al- 
ready lured  so  many  thousands  to  prema- 
ture deaths.  With  Raleigh,  doubtless,  one 
of  the  motives  that  impelled  him  to  under- 
take the  hazardous  and  exhausting  expedi- 
tion to  Guiana  was  to  regain  the  favor  of 
Queen  Elizabeth,  which  had  recently  been 
forfeited.  Then,  too,  there  was  the  lure  of 
adventure  and  excitement,  the  love  of  swift, 
brilliant  action,  and  the  intolerance  of  the 
common,  which  were  such  marked  character- 
istics of  this  remarkable  man. 
143 


THE  QUEST  OF  EL  DORADO 

While  in  retirement  in  his  Dorsetshire 
home,  after  his  enforced  withdrawal  from 
court,  Raleigh  devoted  much  time  to  the 
travel  lore  of  Spain  and  read  with  avidity 
all  the  works  he  could  procure  on  the 
achievements  of  the  Conquistadores  and  the 
expeditions  of  those  who  had  gone  in  quest 
of  the  Gilded  King  and  the  fabled  land  of 
gold  and  treasure  inestimable.  Others  of 
his  countrymen  had  dreamed  of  a  westward 
passage  to  the  Indies,  by  means  of  which 
could  be  tapped  the  trade  of  the  teeming 
East ;  of  sudden  riches  to  be  had  in  the  land 
of  spices  and  in  the  golden  Chersonese,  but 
the  vast  golden  empire  of  Manoa  appealed 
in  a  special  manner  to  one  like  Raleigh,  who 
was  always  hankering  after  new  adventures, 
and  it  seemed  to  haunt  his  imagination  in 
the  most  imperious  manner.  Ever  domi- 
nated by  a  nervous  desire  to  attain  wealth 
and  honor  and  power,  he  felt  himself  beck- 
oned toward  the  region  watered  by  the  great 
144 


SIR  WALTER  RALEIGH 

Orinoco.  Once  there  he  would  not  be  far 
from  the  object  of  his  heart's  desire,  for  he 
could  already  in  his  dreams  see  himself  the 
possessor  of  wealth  untold  and  assured  of 
undying  fame  as  the  one  "who  had  endowed 
his  country  with  the  mighty  El  Dorado." 
He  was  well  aware  of  the  tragic  issues  of 
previous  Spanish  and  German  expedition- 
ers,  but,  notwithstanding  all  this,  he  consid- 
ered the  venture,  to  use  his  own  words,  "fea- 
sible and  certain."  The  long  catalogue  of  ca- 
tastrophes which  signalized  the  undertakings 
of  his  predecessors  and  the  failures  that  in- 
variably attended  all  their  efforts,  far  from 
abating  his  enthusiasm  or  weakening  his  res- 
olution, but  kindled  the  fire  of  enterprise  and 
spurred  him  to  achieve  what  others  had  es- 
sayed but  failed  to  accomplish. 

Strange  as  it  may  appear,  Raleigh  experi- 
enced but  little  difficulty  in  interesting  his 
prosaic  and  conservative  countrymen  in  the 
scheme  in  which  he  himself  was  prepared  to 
145 


THE  QUEST  OF  EL  DORADO 

venture  fortune  and  life.  The  hope  of  rapid 
gain  aroused  their  cupidity  at  once.  Abound- 
ing gold  and  virgin  lands  of  vast  extent  were 
to  them,  as  well  as  to  the  poetical  and  ro- 
mantic sons  of  Spain,  potent  talismans  for 
retrieving  lost  fortunes  and  securing  the  lux- 
uries and  pomps  of  life.  Among  those  who 
gave  liberal  furtherance  to  Raleigh's  enter- 
prise were  some  of  the  most  prominent  men 
of  the  realm  and  most  influential  members 
of  the  court.  The  glamour  of  the  marvelous, 
coupled  with  the  glowing  descriptions  of  the 
great  empire  of  Guiana  with  its  inexhaust- 
ible riches,  sufficed,  in  Raleigh's,  as  in  De 
Vera's  case,  to  secure  all  the  money  neces- 
sary for  the  equipment  of  the  expedition 
that  was  to  redound  to  the  eternal  glory  of 
the  leader  and  of  all  his  associates.  One  of 
the  contributors  to  the  enterprise  was  the  il- 
lustrious statesman,  Sir  Robert  Cecil,  while 
one  of  the  ships  in  Raleigh's  squadron  of 
146 


SIR  WALTER  RALEIGH 

five  vessels  belonged  to  the  Lord  High  Ad- 
miral of  England. 

Raleigh's  fleet  set  sail  from  Plymouth 
February  9,  1595,  and  arrived  at  Trinidad, 
opposite  the  mouth  of  the  Orinoco,  before 
the  end  of  the  following  month.  During  the 
voyage  westward,  near  the  Canaries,  he  in- 
creased his  stores  by  appropriating  those  be- 
longing to  two  foreign  vessels — a  Spaniard 
laden  with  firearms  and  a  Fleming  freighted 
with  wines — a  little  privateering  work  which 
was  permitted  by  the  commission  of  Queen 
Elizabeth,  who  was  nothing  loath  to  connive 
at  warfare  against  her  enemies  so  long  as  it 
was  known  to  be  against  her  public  com- 
mand.1 

1  The  terms  of  his  commission  from  the  Queen 
expressly  empowered  him  "to  do  Us  service  in  of- 
fending the  King  of  Spain  and  his  subjects  in  his 
dominions  to  your  uttermost  power";  all  who  sailed 
under  him,  or  should  afterwards  consort  with  his 
fleet,  are  bound  to  give  due  obedience  in  whatever 
"you  shall  think  meet  to  direct  or  undertake  for  the 
prejudice  of  the  said  King  of  Spain,  or  any  of  Our 

147 


THE  QUEST  OF  EL  DORADO 

Arrived  at  Trinidad,  Sir  Walter  set  about 
getting  information  regarding  the  land  of 
El  Dorado  and  the  easiest  means  of  making 
the  voyage  up  the  Orinoco.  The  previous 
year  he  had  dispatched  Capt.  Whiddon  to 
explore  this  river  and  its  tributaries,  but  his 
emissary  being  thwarted  in  his  designs  by 
Antonio  de  Berrio,  who  was  then  governor 
of  Trinidad  as  well  as  of  the  Orinoco  re- 
gion, was  obliged  to  return  to  England  with- 
out the  information  he  had  gone  to  seek,  and 
which  was  so  essential  to  the  success  of  his 
chief's  expedition.  I  give  Raleigh's  method 
of  procedure  in  obtaining  the  knowledge  he 
desired  in  his  own  words : 

enemies";  and  whatever  shall  be  done  under  that 
commission,  "as  well  by  sea  as  by  land,,  for  the 
furtherance  of  this,  Our  service  and  enfeebling  of 
Our  enemies,  the  subjects  and  adherents  of  the  King 
of  Spain,  you  and  all  such  as  serve  under  you  in  this 
voyage  shall  be  clearly  acquitted  and  discharged." — 
"The  Life  of  Sir  Walter  Raleigh,"  Vol.  I,  p.  195,  by 
Edward  Edwards,  London,  1868. 

148 


ROUTE  FOLLOWED  BY   SIR   WALTER  RALEIGH   IN    SEARCH   OF  EL 
DORADO 


SIR  .WALTER  RALEIGH 

"While  we  remained  at  Puerto  de  los 
Hispanioles  some  Spaniards  came  abord  us 
to  buy  lynnen  of  the  company  and  such 
things  as  they  wanted,  and  also  to  view  our 
shippes  and  company,  all  of  which  I  enter- 
tained kindly  and  feasted  after  our  manner; 
by  means  whereof  I  learned  of  one  and  an- 
other as  much  of  the  estate  of  Guiana  as  I 
could,  or  as  they  knew,  for  these  poore  sould- 
iers  having  been  many  yeares  without  wine, 
a  few  draughts  made  them  merry,  in  which 
moode  they  vaunted  of  Guiana  and  of  the 
riches  thereof,  and  all  what  they  knew  of  the 
waies  and  passages,  my  self  e  seeming  to  pur- 
pose nothing  lesse  than  the  enterance  or  dis- 
couerie  thereof,  but  bred  in  them  an  opinion 
that  I  was  bound  onely  for  the  reliefe  of 
those  English  which  I  had  planted  in  Vir- 
ginia, whereof  the  brute  was  come  among 
them."  2 

2  "The  Discovery  of  the  Large,  Rich  and  Beautiful 
Empire  of  Guiana,  with  a  Relation  of  the  Great  and 

151 


THE  QUEST  OF  EL  DORADO 

After  securing  all  the  information  pos- 
sible from  the  "poore  souldiers,"  who  had 
been  made  "merry"  by  the  wine  which  he  had 
captured  at  the  Canaries  on  his  way  west, 
Raleigh  next  proceeded  to  protect  his  rear 
from  the  attacks  of  the  Spaniards  who,  he 
had  reason  to  apprehend,  would  make  every 
effort  possible  to  frustrate  his  project. 

"So,  considering  that  to  enter  Guiana  by 
small  boats,  to  depart  400  to  500  miles  from 
my  ships,  and  leave  a  garrison  in  my  backe 
interested  in  the  same  enterprize,  who  also 
daily  expected  supplies  out  of  Spaine,  I 
should  have  sauoured  very  much  of  the  Asse ; 
and  therefore  taking  a  time  of  most  aduan- 
tage,  I  set  upon  the  Corp  du  guard  in  the 
euening,  and  hauing  put  them  to  the  swored, 
toke  their  new  city  which  they  call  S.  Joseph 

Golden  City  of  Manoa,  which  the  Spaniards  call  El 
Dorado/'  etc.,  performed  in  the  year  1595  by  Sir  Wal- 
ter Raleigh,  Knt.  Pub.  by  the  Hakluyt  Society,  Lon- 
don (1848), 

152 


V-  v  .^;ir  >  W  '     533 


From  De  .B 

THE  BURNING  OF  ST.  JOSEPH  BY  SIR  WALTER  RALEIGH 


SIR  WALTER  RALEIGH 

by  breake  of  day;  they  abode  not  any  fight 
after  a  few  shot,  and  all  being  dismissed  but 
onely  Berreo  and  his  companion,  I  brought 
them  with  me  abord,  and  at  the  instance  of 
the  Indians  I  set  their  new  city  of  S.  Joseph 
on  fire."  3 

Having  complied  with  the  wishes  of  his 
Queen,  by  thus  "offending  the  King  of 
Spain  and  his  subjects,"  and  completed  all 
arrangements  for  the  conquest  of  Guiana, 
Raleigh  hastened  toward  his  "purposed  dis- 
covery." But  before  proceeding  up  the  Ori- 
noco he  determined  to  make  friends  of  the 
Indians  of  Trinidad.  Calling  together  their 
chiefs,  "I  made  them  understand,"  he  in- 
forms us,  "that  I  was  seruant  of  a  Queene, 
who  was  the  great  Cacique  of  the  north,  and 
a  virgin,  and  had  more  Caciqui  under  her 
than  there  were  trees  in  their  island ;  that  she 
was  an  enemy  to  the  Castellani  in  respect  of 

3  Ut  sup.,  p.  8. 

155 


THE  QUEST  OF  EL  DORADO 

their  tyrannic  and  oppression  and  that  she 
delivered  all  such  nations  about  her,  as  were 
by  them  oppressed,  arid  hauing  freed  all  the 
coast  of  the  northern  world  from  seruitude 
had  sent  me  to  free  them  also,  and  withal 
to  defend  the  country  of  Guiana  from  their 
invasion  and  conquest.  I  shewed  them  her 
maiesties  picture,  which  they  so  admired  and 
honored,  as  it  had  beene  easie  to  haue 
brought  them  idolatrous  thereof."  4 

The  way,  so  the  doughty-handed  adven- 
turer thought,  was  now  clear.  His  base  was 
safe,  the  Indians  were  his  friends  and  allies, 
and  Berrio  was  his  prisoner.  There  was 
still,  it  is  true,  one  great  difficulty  in  the  way, 
and  that  was  regarding  the  exact  location 
of  Manoa  Concerning  this  Raleigh  de- 
clares : 

"My    intelligence    was    farre    from    the 
trueth,  for  the  country  is  situate  about  600 
4  Ut  sup.,  p.  8. 

156 


From  Gottfried! 
RALEIGH  GOING  UP  THE  ORINOCO 

During  his  voyage  up  the  river  Raleigh  saw,  he  declares,  "Divers 
sorts  of  strange  fishes  of  marvelous  bigness,"  and  thousands 
of  "those  uglie  serpents  called  Lagartos — alligators.  I  had 
a  negro,  a  very  proper  young  fellow,  that,  leaping  out  the 
galley  to  swim  in  the  mouth  of  the  river,  was,  in  all  our 
sights,  taken  and  devoured  by  one  of  those  Lagartos." 


SIR  .WALTER  RALEIGH 

English  miles  farther  from  the  sea  than  I 
was  made  beleeue  it  had  beene,  which  after- 
ward understanding  to  be  true  by  Berreo,  I 
kept  from  the  knowledge  of  my  companie, 
who  else  would  neuer  have  been  brought  to 
attempt  the  same." 

From  lack  of  information  regarding  the 
Orinoco  he  left  his  ships  at  anchor  off  Trini- 
dad and  started  up  the  river  in  barges,  ship's 
boats,  wherries,  and  a  "Gallego  bote  fitted 
with  banks  to  row  on,"  in  which  he  placed 
one  hundred  men  and  provisions  for  a 
month.  His  troubles  now  began.  For, 
owing  to  their  restricted  quarters,  "we  were," 
he  says : 

"al  driven  to  lie  in  the  raine  and  wether, 
in  the  open  aire,  in  the  burning  sunne,  and 
upon  hard  bords  and  to  dresse  our  meat,  and 
to  carry  al  manner  of  furniture  in  them 
wherewith  they  were  so  pestered  and  un- 
sauery  that,  what  with  victuals  being  most 
159 


THE  QUEST  OF  EL  DORADO 

fish,  with  the  weete  clothes  of  so  many  men 
thrust  together  and  the  heate  of  the  sunne, 
I  will  undertake  there  was  neuer  any  prison 
in  England  that  coulde  be  founde  more  un- 
sauery  and  lothsome,  especially  to  my  self, 
who  had  for  many  yeares  before  beene  dieted 
and  cared  for  in  a  sort  farre  differing."  5 

But  this  was  not  all.  The  fortune-seekers 
soon  found  themselves  lost  in  the  tortuous 
mazes  of  the  delta  of  the  great  river,  and, 
had  they  not  been  fortunate  in  securing  a 
native  pilot,  they  "might  haue  wandred  a 
whole  yeare  in  that  labyrinth  of  rivers." 

"For  I  know  all  the  earth  [the  great  navi- 
gator writes  without  exaggeration  in  this  in- 
stance] doth  not  yeeld  the  like  confluence  of 
streams  and  branches,  the  one  crossing  the 
other  so  many  times,  and  all  so  faire  and 
large  and  so  like  one  to  another,  as  no  man 
can  tell  which  to  take ;  and  if  we  went  by  the 
5  Op.  cit.,  p.  10. 

160 


HOUSES  OP  THE  INDIANS  ON  THE  LOWER  ORINOCO 

Raleigh  called  these  Indians  Tinitinas,  and  states  that  during 
the  winter,  when  the  river  is  in  flood,  "they  dwell  upon  the 
trees,  where  they  build  very  artiflciall  townes  and  villages." 
This  story  of  Raleigh's,  which  had  no  more  foundation  in  fact 
than  many  of  his  other  yarns,  was  generally  accepted  as  true 
until  only  a  few  years  ago.  Even  the  great  Humboldt,  who 
never  visited  the  delta  of  the  Orinoco,  repeats  the  story  with 
embellishments  of  his  own. 


SIR  WALTER  RALEIGH 

sunne  or  compasse,  hoping  thereby  to  go  di- 
rectly one  way  or  another,  yet  that  waie  we 
were  also  carried  in  a  circle  amongst  multi- 
tudes of  Hands  and  every  Hand  so  bordered 
with  high  trees  as  no  man  could  see  any 
farther  than  the  bredth  of  the  riuer  or  length 
of  the  breach."  6 

Then,  in  addition  to  this  difficulty,  there 
was  the  powerful  current  of  the  river  to  over- 
come, which  they  struggled  against  until 
they  were  so  exhausted  that  they  were  on  the 
verge  of  despair.  Finally,  however,  after 
fifteen  days  of  hardships  that  can  be  fully 
appreciated  only  by  one  who  has  visited  this 
part  of  the  world,  the  intrepid  band  emerged 
from  the  labyrinth  of  the  delta  and  caught 
their  first  view  of  the  Orinoco  in  all  its  im- 
pressive grandeur  and  majesty.  Had  they 
been  better  advised,  they  might  have  reached 
the  river  in  the  ships  which  they  had  left  be- 

6  Op.  cit.,  p.  46. 

163 


THE  QUEST  OF  EL  DORADO 

hind  them,  for  the  Orinoco  is  navigable  by 
ocean  vessels  for  hundreds  of  miles,  and 
they  would  have  covered  the  distance,  which 
cost  them  so  many  days,  in  a  comparatively 
short  time  and  with  far  less  effort. 

Raleigh's  eyes  at  last  rested  on  the  waters 
of  the  river  of  which  he  had  so  often  dreamed 
—the  river  that  was  to  bear  him  to 

"that  mighty,  rich,  and  beautiful  Empire  of 
Guiana  and  to  that  great  and  golden  citie 
which  the  Spanyards  call  El  Dorado  and  the 
naturals  Manoa — to  a  country  which  hath 
more  quantity  of  gold,  by  manifolde,  than 
the  best  partes  of  the  Indies  of  Peru." 

For  years  Raleigh  had  been  devouring 
every  document  he  could  lay  his  hands  on 
that  had  any  reference  to  El  Dorado.  He 
had  questioned  every  seaman  who  had  been 
in  the  New  World  with  a  view  to  securing  all 
the  knowledge  possible  respecting  the  precise 
164 


SIR  WALTER  RALEIGH 

location  and  extent  and  riches  of  the  great 
Empire  of  Guiana.  He  had  consulted  the 
Indians  in  Trinidad  and  along  the  banks  of 
the  Orinoco,  and  had  succeeded  in  inducing 
his  prisoner,  Berrio,  to  impart  to  him  all  the 
knowledge  he  had  regarding  the  country 
which  he  purposed  offering  to  his  Queen. 
And  now,  after  all  this  preparation,  there 
could  be  no  longer  any  doubt  of  the  success 
of  his  enterprise.  Further  incredulity  would 
be  tantamount  to  denying  the  validity  of 
human  testimony  and  the  evidence  of 
the  senses.  "For  on  the  fifteenth  day,"  as 
he  assures  us,  "we  discouered  a  farre  off 
the  mountaines  of  Guiana,  to  our  great 

joy." 

Moreover,  did  not  his  captive  De  Berrio, 
who  pompously  styled  himself  the  governor 
of  Trinidad,  Guiana,  and  El  Dorado,  have 
actually  in  his  possession  documentary  evi- 
dence of  the  vast  treasures  of  Manoa?  Had 
he  not  the  testimony  of  one,  Juan  Martines, 
165 


THE  QUEST  OF  EL  DORADO 

who  had  spent  seven  months  in  this  great 
city — being  lodged  and  entertained  all  the 
while  in  the  Emperor's  own  palace?  And 
had  not  this  eyewitness,  in  speaking  of  the 
magnitude  of  the  city,  solemnly  averred  on 
his  deathbed  that  "he  entered  the  city  at 
noon,  and  that  he  traveled  al  that  daie  til 
night  thorow  the  citie  and  the  next  daie  from 
sun  rising  to  sun  setting  ere  he  came  to  the 
palace  of  the  Inga"?  Had  he  not  been  a 
spectator  of  the  abundance  of  gold  which  its 
inhabitants  possessed?  And  had  he  not  be- 
held "the  images  of  gold  in  their  temples,  the 
plates,  armors,  and  shields  of  gold  which 
they  use  in  the  wars"?  Had  he  not  noted 
that  "the  people  of  Manoa  were  marueylous 
great  drunkardes,"  and  that  "at  times  of 
their  solemne  feasts,  when  the  Emperor  ca- 
rowseth  with  his  captayns,  tributaries  and 
gouernours — all  those  that  pledge  him  are 
stripped  naked,  and  have  their  bodies 
anoynted  al  ouer,  with  a  kind  of  white  bal- 
166 


.-; .. 


SECTION  OP  RALEIGH'S  MAP  OF  GUIANA 

The  locations  of  the  Lake  and  City  of  Manoa  are  here  shown. 
The  geographer  Hondius  who  constructed  his  map  of  Guiana 
shortly  after  Raleigh's  return  from  his  first  expedition,  lo- 
cates Lake  Parime,  or  Dorado,  between  latitudes  2°  north 
and  1°  45'  south  and  makes  it  larger  than  the  Caspian  Sea. 
"I  have  beene  assured,"  writes  Raleigh,  "by  such  of  the 
Spanyardes  as  have  scene  Manoa,  the  emperiall  Citie  of 
Guiana,  which  the  Spanyardes  cal  El  Dorado,  that  for  the 
greatnes,  for  the  riches,  and  for  the  excellent  seate,  it  farre 
exceedeth  any  of  the  world,  at  least  of  so  much  of  the  world 
as  is  knoen  to  the  Spanish  nation;  it  is  founded  upon  a  lake 
of  salt  water  200  leagues  long  like  unto  Mare  Caspium." 


SIR  .WALTER  RALEIGH 

samum,"  that  "when  they  are  anoynted  all 
ouer,  certaine  seruants  of  the  Emperor  hau- 
ing  prepared  gold  made  into  fine  powder 
blew  it  thorow  hollow  canes  upon  their  naked 
bodies  untill  they  be  al  shining  from  the 
foote  to  the  head"  and  that  "in  this  sort  they 
sit  drinking  by  twenties  and  hundreds  and 
continue  in  drunkeness  sometimes  six  and 
seven  daies  together"? 

Who  could  refuse  to  credit  the  assertions 
of  such  a  keen  observer  and  one  who  for 
seven  months  had  the  freedom  of  the  city 
and  had  every  opportunity  for  knowing 
whereof  he  spoke — assertions  made  by  Mar- 
tines  in  his  dying  hour,  when  he  could  have 
had  no  reason  for  untruthfulness  or  decep- 
tion? And  had  not  the  asseverations  of 
Martines  been  fully  substantiated  by  divers 
Spanish  letters  which  had  been  intercepted 
at  sea  by  Capt.  Popham  only  the  year  be- 
fore Raleigh's  arrival  in  Guiana?  And,  fur- 
thermore, did  not  the  various  caciques,  whom 
169 


THE  QUEST  OF  EL  DORADO 

he  interrogated  as  he  ascended  the  Orinoco, 
fully  corroborate  the  information  contained 
in  these  letters  as  well  as  the  statements  of 
Berrio  and  Martines?  No,  unless  one  were 
prepared  to  reject  all  evidence,  of  what  char- 
acter soever,  as  utterly  untrustworthy,  there 
could  be  no  longer  any  question  about  the 
existence  of  Manoa  and  the  priceless  treas- 
ures it  was  said  to  contain. 

These  astounding  declarations  coming 
from  so  many  quarters  were  accepted  by 
Raleigh  as  indisputable  facts  and  roused 
him  to  an  uncontrollable  fever  of  expect- 
ancy. Toward  the  south  his  delighted  eyes 
descried  the  peaks  of  the  sierras  of  Picatoa 
and  Imataca.  These  eminences  enchained 
his  fancy,  for  they  looked  down  upon  the 
great  city  which  was  the  object  of  his 
quest. 

It  was  "founded  upon  a  lake  of  salt  water 
two  hundred  leagues  long  like  unto  Mare 
Caspium,  and  for  the  greatness,  for  the 
170 


Jfrom  De  Bry 
ANOMAIA  INDIANS  SUPPLYING  RALEIGH  WITH  PROVISIONS 


SIR  WALTER  RALEIGH 

riches,  and  for  the  excellent  seate,  it  farre 
exceedeth  any  of  the  world." 

He  was  so  sure  of  all  this  that  in  his  chart 
of  Guiana,  executed  about  this  time,  and 
which  is  still  preserved  in  the  British  Mu- 
seum, he  gives  the  exact  location  of  this 
great  lake  and  its  rich  capital  city  on  its 
eastern  shore. 

And  that  his  readers  may  have  an  ade- 
quate conception  of  the  riches  of  Guiana, 
which  "hath  more  abundance  of  Golde  than 
any  part  of  Peru,  and  as  many  or  more 
great  Cities  than  euer  Peru  had  when  it 
flourished  most,"  and  realize  the  magnifi- 
cence of  the  "emperiall  Citie  of  Guiana,"  he 
compares  it  with  the  court  of  Huayna  Capac 
during  the  palmiest  days  of  the  Inca  dynasty. 

Quoting  from  Gomara's  "Historia  Gen- 
eral de  las  Indias,"  he  writes: 

"All  the  vessels  of  his  home,  table  and 
kitchen  were   of  gold   and   siluer   and  the 
173 


THE  QUEST  OF  EL  DORADO 

meanest  of  siluer  and  copper  for  strength 
and  hardiness  of  the  metal.  He  had  in  his 
wardroppe  hollow  statutes  of  golde  which 
seemed  giants,  and  the  figures  in  proportion 
and  bignes  of  all  the  beasts,  birdes,  trees, 
and  hearbes  that  the  earth  bringeth  forth; 
and  of  all  the  fishes  that  the  sea  or  the  waters 
of  his  kingdom  breedeth.  Hee  also  had 
ropes,  budgets,  chests,  and  troughs  of  golde 
and  siluer,  heaps  of  billets  of  golde  that 
seemed  woode,  marked  out  to  burne.  Fi- 
nally there  was  nothing  in  his  country, 
whereof  hee  had  not  the  counterfeat  in 
gold."  7 

Reveling  thus  in  visions  of  wealth  beyond 
human  computation — wealth  which  he  felt 
sure  was  at  last  within  his  grasp — is  it  mat- 
ter for  wonder  that  the  credulous  and  per- 
fervid  adventurer  toiled  up  the  impetuous 

7  Cf.  "Historia  General  de  las  Indias,"  p.  232,  por 
Francisco  Lopez  de  Gomara,  Tom.  XXII,  of  the 
"Biblioteca  de  Autores  Espanoles/'  Madrid  (1877). 

174 


SIR  WALTER  RALEIGH 

river  radiant  with  delight;  that  every  sign 
was  for  him  a  happy  omen,  and  that  every 
stone  he  "stooped  to  take  up  promised  eyther 
golde  or  siluer  by  his  complexion" ;  that  the 
land  with  which  he  was  finally  in  touch  was 
of  a  truth  "the  Magazin  of  all  rich  mettels"? 
"There  never  was,"  as  his  countryman,  Sir 
Frederick  Treves,  has  recently  declared,  "a 
more  romantic  river  voyage;  never  a  more 
rapturous  wild-goose  chase.  Raleigh  was 
infinitely  gullible.  He  believed  every  word 
the  romance-loving  Spaniards  told  him  as  if 
he  had  been  a  gaping  schoolboy.  He  trusted 
Juan  Martines  as  a  modern  traveler  trusts 
Baedeker.  He  gathered  inspiration  and  as- 
surance from  any  dull-witted  Indian  who 
nodded  'yes'  to  the  unintelligible  questions 
of  his  interpreter.' 


»  8 


Raleigh's  venture  was  as  abortive  as  had 
been  all  preceding  expeditions  in  quest  of  El 

8  "The  Cradle  of  the  Deep/'  p.  76,  by  Sir  Frederick 
Treves,  London  (1Q08). 

175 


THE  QUEST  OF  EL  DORADO 

Dorado,  but  he  would  own  to  no  failure. 
After  reaching  the  river  Caroni,  a  tributary 
of  the  Orinoco,  and  "sounding"  an  old  In- 
dian chieftain  regarding  the  army  of  the  em- 
peror of  Guiana,  while  some  of  his  "cap- 
taines  garoused  of  his  (the  chief's)  wine  till 
they  were  reasonable  pleasant,"  he  concluded 
that  it  would  be  unsafe  to  invade  the  Inca's 
empire  without  a  much  larger  force  than 
he  then  had  under  his  command.  Besides 
this,  he  learned  that  there  was  a  detachment 
of  Spanish  troops  coming  against  him  from 
Caracas  and  New  Granada,  and  being  short 
of  ammunition,  he  judged  it  the  better  part 
of  valor  to  rejoin  his  squadron  at  Trinidad 
with  the  least  possible  delay. 

Shortly  afterwards  he  was  back  in  Eng- 
land, where  his  reception  was  far  different 
from  what  he  thought  it  would  be  on  his  de- 
parture thence  six  months  before.  Then  he 
confidently  expected  to  return  with  his  ships 
laden  with  treasure,  and  to  be  restored  to  the 
176 


THE  EWAIPAXOMAS 

These,  says  Raleigh,  \vere  a  nation  of  people  "whose  heades 
appeare  not  above  their  shoulders,  which,  though  it  may  be 
thought  a  meere  fable,  yet  for  mine  owne  parte  I  am  re- 
solved it  is  true.  *  *  *  They  are  reported  to  have  their  eyes 
in  their  shoulders  and  their  mouths  in  the  middle  of  their 
breasts,  and  that  a  long  train  of  haire  groweth  backward 
between  their  shoulders."  Shakespeare  had  apparently  read 
Raleigh's  work,  as  is  evinced  from  the  following  well-known 


The  cannibals,  that  each  other  eat. 

The  Anthropophagi,  and  men  whose  heads 

Do  grow  between  their  shoulders. 


SIR  WALTER  RALEIGH 

favor  of  his  Queen  by  announcing  that  he 
had  added  to  her  diadem  what  was  thence- 
forth to  constitute  its  most  precious  jewel — 
the  great  and  beautiful  empire  of  Guiana. 
So  far  was  this  from  being  the  case  that,  not 
counting  the  great  monetary  losses  incurred 
by  his  luckless  venture,  he  returned  discred- 
ited, a  target  for  criticism,  and  a  butt  of  con- 
tumely and  ridicule.  Some  went  so  far  as  to 
assert  that  he  had  never  accompanied  his 
squadron  to  Guiana,  and  that  during  its  ab- 
sence he  had  been  lurking  in  Cornwall.  They 
declared  further  that  the  more  valuable  ores 
which  had  been  brought  home  to  be  assayed 
in  London  were  originally  "had  from  Bar- 
bary  and  were  carried  to  Guiana,"  while 
only  the  comparatively  worthless  marcasite, 
which  was  among  the  ores  submitted  to  the 
assayer,  was  a  native  product  of  the  much 
vaunted  land  of  El  Dorado.  It  was  to  an- 
swer these  and  similar  allegations  that  he 
179 


THE  QUEST  OF  EL  DORADO 

published  his  famous  "Discoverie  of  Gui- 


ana." 


But  notwithstanding  the  hapless  issue  of 
his  first  venture,  Raleigh  still  persisted  in 
maintaining  Guiana  to  be  a  "magazine  of 
all  rich  metals,"  and  to  contain  within  its 
"boundaries  the  greatest  assurance  of  good 
ever  offered  to  any  Christian  princes."  He 
insisted  in  the  most  solemn  manner  that  he 
had  "propounded  no  vaine  thinge"  in  this 
report  regarding  the  land  of  "Manoa  the 
Golden."  The  enterprise  in  which  he  had 
embarked  he  continued  to  asseverate  to  be 
"fesible  and  certayne."  9 

"I  asure  my  sealf,"  he  writes  to  Sir  Rob- 
ert Cecil,  "that  ther  ar  not  more  diamoundes 
in  the  East  Indies  than  ar  to  be  founde  in 
Guiana."  And  writing  to  the  Earl  of  Hol- 
derness  regarding  a  second  expedition  which 
he  was  to  have  depart  for  Guiana  without 
delay,  he  does  not  hesitate  to  declare,  "If  I 

9  Edwards,  ut  sup.,  Vol.  II,  p.   393. 
180 


... 


From  Gottfriedt 
STRANGE  CUSTOMS  OF  THE  TINITINAS 

Writing  Df  the  Tinitinas,  who  dwell  on  trees,  Raleigh  declares 
that  when  their  lords  die  and  the  flesh  has  fallen  from  their 
bones  their  relatives  "take  up  the  carcaise  againe  and  hang 
it  in  the  Cacique's  house  that  died  and  decke  his  skull  with 
feathers  of  all  colours,  and  hang  all  his  gold  plates  about  the 
bones  of  his  armes,  thighes,  and  legges  *  *  *  and  dp  use  to 
beat  the  bones  of  their  lords  into  powder,  and  their  wives 
and  friends  drinke  it  in  their  severall  sorts  of  drinks." 


SIR  WALTER  RALEIGH 

bringe  them  not" — the  members  of  the 
expedition — "to  a  mountaine  covered  with 
golde  and  siluer  oare,  let  the  commander 
have  commissione  to  cut  off  my  head  ther." 

Eager,  however,  as  was  Raleigh  to  re- 
visit the  land  of  El  Dorado,  an  interval  of 
twenty-one  years  elapsed  between  his  first 
and  second  expeditions.  Twelve  of  these 
years  were  spent  in  the  Tower  of  London, 
where  he  was  confined  on  a  charge  of  treason. 
When  he  regained  his  liberty  he  was  sixty- 
three  years  of  age,  but  his  spirit  in  the  face 
of  a  foredoomed  enterprise,  the  difficulties 
of  which  were  past  counting,  was  as  un- 
daunted as  ever. 

But  it  is  noteworthy  that  the  object  of 
his  quest  in  this  second  expedition — at  least 
so  far  as  concerns  his  public  announcement 
of  it — is  no  longer  the  conquest  of  the  rich 
land  of  El  Dorado  and  the  possession  of 
the  famed  city  of  Manoa,  where  "ther  ar 
store  of  gold  images  of  forty-seven  hundred 
183 


THE  QUEST  OF  EL  DORADO 

weight  and  worth  a  hundred  thousand 
pounds  each,"  but  a  certain  mine  which  it 
was  reported  would  "swell  all  England  with 
gold."  There  is  no  reason,  however,  to  be- 
lieve that  he  had  lost  faith  in  Manoa  or  El 
Dorado,  but  he  had  learned  by  sad  experi- 
ence that  his  countrymen  were  disposed  to 
regard  these  as  too  chimerical  for  safe  busi- 
ness ventures.  A  gold  mine,  or,  that  failing, 
a  plate  fleet,  was  something  more  tangible 
and  something  that  appealed  more  strongly 
to  the  money-loving  but  conservative  men 
with  whom  he  now  had  to  deal.10 

If  this  mine  proved  to  be  all  that  Raleigh 
fancied,  it  would,  he  reasoned,  pave  the  way 
for  the  next  step — the  culmination  of  his 

10  It  was  while  talking  with  Lord  Bacon  about  the 
terms  of  his  commission  from  King  James  that  Ra- 
leigh made  his  famous  reply  to  Bacon's  question: 
"What  will  you  do,  if  after  all  this  expenditure,  you 
miss  of  the  gold  mines?"  "We  shall  then  look  after 
the  Plate  Fleet,  to  be  sure."  "But,  then  you  will  be 
pirates."  "Ah,  who  ever  heard  of  men  being  pirates 
for  millions?" 

184 


SIR  WALTER  RALEIGH 

life  work — the  conquest  and  annexation  of 
El  Dorado  to  "the  crowne  imperiall  of  the 
Realme  of  England."  Then,  the  dreamer 
dreamed,  one  would  see  the  Queen's  domin- 
ions "exceedingly  enlarged  and  the  realm 
of  England  inestimably  enriched."  Then 
would  there  be  in  London  a  "contration 
house  of  more  receipt  for  Guiana  than  there 
is  nowe  in  Seville  for  the  West  Indies." 
Then  would  England's  ruler  be  the  great- 
est and  richest  of  sovereigns.  Then  would 
the  Spaniards  cease  to  "threaten  us  with 
any  more  invincible  Armadas,"  and  then, 
finally,  would  Raleigh  himself,  firmly  seated 
on  the  throne  of  the  Inca  of  Manoa,  as  gov- 
ernor general  of  the  great  empire  of  Gui- 
ana, be  in  a  position  to  defy  the  Spaniard— 
that  arch  enemy  of  his  country — and  Eng- 
land would  thenceforward  be  "unresistable 
both  on  land  and  on  sea." 

It  is  beside  my  purpose  to  follow  Raleigh 
in  his  last  ill-starred  venture;  to  tell  how 
185 


THE  QUEST  OF  EL  DORADO 

"evil  chance  brooded  over  the  expedition 
from  the  outset";  how  dire  calamities  fell 
thickly  upon  the  tempest-tossed,  plague- 
stricken  adventurers  as  they  approached  the 
shores  of  Guiana;  how  the  indomitable 
leader,  prostrate  with  fever,  saw  his  strength 
ebb  from  him;  how,  after  the  death  of  his 
idolized  son,  he  was  obliged  to  abandon  the 
scheme  of  his  life's  imagining;  and  how,  in- 
stead of  witnessing  the  fulfillment  of  a  long- 
cherished  dream,  he  was  forced  to  acknowl- 
edge the  complete  frustration  of  all  his 
hopes ;  how,  in  face  of  the  tragic  issue  of  the 
enterprise  on  which  he  had  staked  fortune, 
reputation,  life,  he  was  on  the  verge  of  dying 
of  a  broken  heart;11  how  he  returned  to 

11  In  a  letter  to  his  wife,  in  which  he  informs  her 
of  their  son's  tragic  death,  he  writes  as  follows:  "I 
protest  before  the  Majestic  of  God  that  as  Sir  Francis 
Drake  and  Sir  John  Hawkins  died  hartbrokeii  when 
they  failed  of  their  enterprise,  I  could  willingly  doe 
the  like  did  I  not  contend  against  sorrowe  for  your 
sake  in  hope  to  provide  somewhat  for  you,  and  to  com- 

186 


MAP  OF  GUIANA  BY  THEODOR  DE  BRY,  1599 

This  map  is  of  special  interest,  as  it  exhibits  many  of  the  places 
mentioned  by  Raleigh  in  his  "Discoverie  of  Guiana,"  espe- 
cially Manoa,  Parime,  and  the  region  occupied  by  the  head- 
less men. 

I.  Amapaia  ;  rich  in  gold.  The  water  of  this  region  is  good  at 
midday,  but  in  the  evening,  and  especially  at  midnight,  it 
is  very  poisonous.  II.  Iwaipanoma.  In  this  locality,  accord- 
ing to  Raleigh,  live  people  without  heads.  III.  Iwarawakeri. 
These  mountains  are  rich  in  gold.  The  sands  of  the  rivers 
flowing  into  Lake  Cassipa  also  carry  much  gold.  IV.  Manoa 
or  Dorado.  This  is  considered  to  be  the  largest  city  in  the 
entire  world.  V.  Lake  Parime.  It  is  200  miles  long,  has  salt 
water,  and  there  are  many  islands  in  it.  VI.  Region  occupied 
by  the  women  called  Amazons.  VII.  Arwackas.  Friends  of 
the  Spaniards.  VIII.  The  people  living  on  the  Essekebe  River 
can  go  by  boat  from  the  mouth  of  the  river  to  within  a  day's 
journey  of  Lake  Parime.  IX-X.  A  headless  man  and  an 
Amazon. 


SIR  WALTER  RALEIGH 

London  to  face  the  opprobrium  which  his 
failure  entailed;  how,  charged  with  piracy, 
his  long  and  tumultuous  career  was,  at  the 
instance  of  Gondomar,  the  Spanish  ambas- 
sador, finally  brought  to  an  ignominious 
close  under  the  headsman's  ax  in  Old  Pal- 
ace yard. 

"Poor  self-befooled  Raleigh,"  writes  Sir 
Frederick  Treves,  "he  left  more  gold  in  this 
miserable  country  than  he  ever  brought 
away  from  it,  for  he  gave  to  any  loquacious 
chief  who  would  listen  to  his  babblings  an 
honest  English  sovereign — a  piece  of  'the 
new  money,  of  twenty  shillings,  with  Her 
Majesty's  picture.'  It  would  have  indeed 
been  well  for  the  gallant  dreamer  if  he  had 
left  Guiana  forever  to  the  sun." 

fort  and  relieve  you."  (Edwards,  Op.  cit.,  Vol.  II, 
p.  360. 

12  Op.  cit.  p.  77. 


CHAPTER  IX 

PERSISTENCE  OF  BELIEF  IN  EL  DORADO 

RALEIGH'S  ill-fated  expedition  of  1617 
was  the  last  of  the  great  ventures  in  quest 
of  El  Dorado.  The  expeditions  that  were 
subsequently  fitted  out — and  there  were 
many  of  them — were  of  minor  importance 
and  attracted  but  little  attention.  But  like 
all  preceding  attempts  they,  too,  issued  in 
failure  or  catastrophe. 

Yet,  notwithstanding  the  long  record  of 
adventures  and  disasters,  which  extended 
through  more  than  a  century,  men  still  con- 
tinued to  believe  in  Manoa  and  Lake  Parime 
and  El  Dorado  as  firmly  as  ever.  Raleigh, 
in  his  map  executed  about  1595,  had  fixed 
the  location  of  the  capital  of  the  Gilded 
Prince  on  the  eastern  shore  of  Lake  Manoa, 
and  subsequent  cosmographers  kept  it  on 
190 


BELIEF  IN  EL  DORADO 

their  maps  for  more  than  two  hundred  years. 
In  his  map  of  1599,  which  is  adorned  with 
figures  of  a  giant  Amazon  and  of  one  of  the 
headless  men  described  by  Raleigh,  De  Bry 
places  Manoa  on  the  north  of  Lake  Parime 
—Raleigh  had  located  it  on  the  east — with 
the  interesting  caption :  Manoa  oder  Dorado,, 
disc  wirdt  geacht  fur  di  groste  Stadt  in  der 
ganzen  welt — (Manoa  or  Dorado  regarded 
as  the  largest  city  in  the  entire  world) .  De 
Laet,  in  his  map  of  1630,  moves  Manoa  or 
El  Dorado  to  the  west  end  of  the  lake  just 
opposite  the  position  assigned  it  by  Raleigh. 
Blaeuw,  in  his  maps  of  1640-1667,  follows 
de  Laet,  as  does  also  Sanson  in  1650  and 
1656.  In  Surville's  map  of  1778,  Lake  Pa- 
rime,  in  addition  to  the  designation  by  which 
it  had  been  so  long  known,  bears  a  new 
name,  Mar  Eldorado,  the  golden  sea.  Even 
as  late  as  1806,  after  Humboldt  had  proved 
that  the  lake,  about  which  so  much  had  been 
imagined  and  written,  was  only  a  myth,  we 
193 


THE  QUEST  OF  EL  DORADO 

find  it  still  on  the  map  of  Depons  with  a 
distinct  indication  of  the  city  of  El  Dorado, 
Raleigh's  "rich  and  magnificent"  city  of 
Manoa.  And  yet  more.  So  late  as  1844  a 
work  entitled  "El  Dorado"  was  published 
in  New  York  by  a  Mr.  Van  Heuvel,  who 
had  visited  the  coast  region  of  Guiana,  in 
which  he  contends  that  Humboldt  had  ef- 
faced the  wondrous  lake  without  sufficient 
grounds.  In  the  map  illustrating  his  book, 
Lake  Parime,  under  the  name  of  the  White 
Sea  of  the  Manoas,  still  figures  as  promi- 
nently as  ever  and  in  the  exact  location  as- 
signed it  by  Raleigh  two  and  a  half  cen- 
turies before. 

Nor  is  this  all.  Even  today,  in  parts  of 
Venezuela  and  Colombia,  the  belief  still  pre- 
vails that  somewhere,  in  the  vast  and  unex- 
plored region  between  the  Orinoco  and  the 
Amazon,  one  may  yet  find  the  ruins  of  the 
famed  city  of  El  Dorado,  and  that  there  is 
still  waiting  there  under  the  debris  of  crum- 
194 


BELIEF  IN  EL  DORADO 

bled  palaces  treasures  as  great  as  any  ever 
found  in  the  huacas  of  Peru  and  New  Gra- 
nada. 

A  similar  belief  likewise  obtains  in  certain 
parts  of  Peru  and  Bolivia  regarding  the 
former  existence  of  a  rich  city  and  empire 
somewhere  in  the  forest  region  to  the  east 
of  the  Andes  and  to  the  south  of  the  Ama- 
zon. This  imaginary  empire,  which  was 
supposed  to  be  greater  even  than  that  of 
the  Incas  on  the  Andean  plateau,  was,  ac- 
cording to  tradition,  founded  by  a  younger 
brother  of  Atahualpa  after  the  conquest  of 
the  Children  of  the  Sun  by  Francisco  Pi- 
zarro.  He  was  known  by  various  names, 
sometimes  being  called  Enim  or  Great  Paru, 
at  others  the  Gran  Moxo  or  Great  Paytiti. 
It  was  reported  in  Lima,  by  one  who  de- 
clared that  he  had  been  in  the  capital  of  this 
mighty  empire,  that  no  fewer  than  three 
thousand  artisans  were  employed  in  the 

Street  of  the  Silversmiths,  and  that  in  the 
197 


THE  QUEST  OF  EL  DORADO 

neighborhood  of  this  marvelous  city  there 
was  a  hill  of  silver  and  another  of  gold.  The 
columns  of  the  palace,  it  was  averred,  were 
of  alabaster  and  porphyry,  the  galleries  of 
cedar  and  ebony,  while  the  throne  was  of 
ivory,  and  was  reached  by  steps  of  gold. 

When  Martin  del  Barco  Centenera,  about 
the  time  of  Raleigh's  expedition  to  Guiana, 
was  writing  his  metrical  chronicle,  "La  Ar- 
gentina," in  which  he  records  the  events  of 
the  conquests  of  the  regions  bordering  the 
Rio  de  la  Plata,  a  report  was  circulated  in 
Paraguay  that  the  capital  of  the  Gran  Moxo 
had  actually  been  discovered.  Don  Martin 
gives  the  information  as  authentic  and  ex- 
presses his  regret  that  Cabeza  de  Vaca,  the 
first  explorer  of  the  Paraguay,  had  not  pro- 
ceeded farther  up  the  river.  For,  if  he 
had,  the  poet-chronicler  asserts,  he  certainly 
would  have  been  the  fortunate  discoverer  of 
the  capital  of  the  Gran  Moxo,  whose  palace 
stood  on  an  island  in  a  lake.  In  richness 
198 


BELIEF  IN  EL  DORADO 

and  magnificence  this  city,  it  was  declared, 
eclipsed  anything  narrated  of  the  splendors 
of  Mexico  or  Cuzco  and  could  be  compared 
only  with  some  of  the  fabled  cities  of  Pal- 
merian  romance  or  Oriental  story.  "It  was," 
we  are  informed,  "built  of  white  stone.  At 
the  entrance  were  two  towers  and  between 
them  a  column  five  and  twenty  feet  in 
height.  On  its  top  was  a  large  silver  moon, 
and  two  living  lions  were  fastened  to  its  base 
with  chains  of  gold.  Having  passed  these 
guardians  one  came  into  a  quadrangle 
planted  with  trees  and  watered  by  a  silver 
fountain,  which  spouted  through  four  golden 
pipes.  The  gate  of  the  palace  was  of  cop- 
per. It  was  very  small  and  its  bolt  was  re- 
ceived in  the  solid  rock.  Within,  a  golden 
sun  was  placed  upon  an  altar  of  silver,  and 
four  lamps  were  kept  burning  before  it  day 
and  night."  1 

1  "La  Argentina/'   Cap.  V,  Buenos  Aires    (1836). 
In   Vol.    V   of   "Coleccion   de    Obras   y   Documentos 

199 


THE  QUEST  OF  EL  DORADO 

Even  today,  I  was  frequently  assured 
while  traveling  in  the  tablelands  of  south- 
ern Peru,  the  descendants  of  the  people  for- 
merly ruled  over  by  the  Gran  Moxo  still 
survive  in  large  numbers  and  are  said  to  pos- 
sess fabulous  wealth  in  hidden  stores  and 
precious  stones.  They  occasionally,  I  was 
told,  visit  some  of  the  towns  on  the  plateau, 
but  they  are  always  secretive  about  every- 
thing and  are  quite  unwilling  to  give  any  in- 
formation whatever  respecting  their  manner 
of  life  or  place  of  abode. 

Relatives  a  la  Historia  Antigua  y  Moderna  de  las 
Provincias  del  Rio  de  la  Plata."  Cf.  the  author's 
"South  America's  Southland/'  pp.  446-448. 


CHAPTER  X 

REASONS  FOR  THE  PERSISTENCE  OF  BE- 
LIEF IN  EL  DORADO 

IT  would  be  difficult  to  name  any  other 
myth  that  has  had  a  stronger  hold  on  man- 
kind or  one  that  has  been  more  remarkable 
for  its  longevity  than  that  of  El  Dorado. 
Notwithstanding  the  countless  disasters  to 
which  it  lured  so  many  thousand  people  of 
divers  nations,  notwithstanding  that  every 
expedition  was  an  absolute  failure,  and  that 
the  last  adventurer  never  got  any  nearer  the 
object  of  his  quest  than  did  Belalcazar  or 
Orellana,  the  fortune-hunter  was  not  disen- 
chanted. The  spell  of  El  Dorado  was  over 
Spaniard  and  German  and  Englishman 
alike,  and,  although  it  was  as  unattainable 
as  the  flitting  rainbow,  they,  nevertheless, 
continued  for  generations  its  eager  pursuit. 
201 


THE  QUEST  OF  EL  DORADO 

Belalcazar  sought  for  it  on  the  plateau  of 
Cundinamarca,  Pizarro  and  Orellana  in  the 
forests  of  Canela  and  along  the  banks  of  the 
Amazon.  The  Quesadas  searched  for  it  in 
the  eastern  declivities  of  the  Andes,  and,  not 
finding  it  there,  continued  their  pursuit  of  it 
in  the  dark  recesses  of  the  dense  tropical  jun- 
gles between  the  Meta  and  the  Caqueta.  To 
secure  so  great  a  prize  Von  Hutten,  Martin 
de  Proveda  and  Pedro  de  Silva  wandered 
over  the  llanos  of  Venezuela  and  New  Gra- 
nada and  struggled  through  the  intermi- 
nable wilds  that  intervene  between  Chacha- 
poyas  and  the  Caribbean.  Ursua  and 
Aguirre  and  Antonio  de  Berrio  in  their 
quest  of  the  same  chimera  crossed  the  con- 
tinent from  west  to  east,  and  braved  count- 
less tribes  of  hostile  aborigines.  But  their 
fate  was  the  same  as  that  of  their  disen- 
chanted predecessors.  For,  after  untold 
hardships  and  the  performance  of  fabulous 
feats  of  valor,  they  were,  at  the  end  of  their 
202 


REASONS  FOR  BELIEF 

long  and  arduous  journeys,  no  nearer  the 
objects  of  their  quest  than  when  they  first 
embarked  in  their  fantastic  and  soul-stirring 
enterprises. 

No  difficulty  deterred  them,  no  danger, 
however  great,  appalled  them.  Snowclad 
mountains,  sunburnt  plains,  pestilential 
morasses,  treacherous  rivers,  drenching  rains 
that  "penetrated  to  their  souls,"  famine, 
poisoned  arrows,  imminent  death  of  the  most 
horrible  kind,  had  no  terrors  for  those  ex- 
traordinary adventurers  who  knew  not  fear 
and  who  continued  to  march  and  fight  even 
to  their  last  breath,  or,  as  an  old  chronicler 
has  it,  con  el  alma  en  los  dientes — with  their 
souls  between  their  teeth.  Not  finding  El 
Dorado  on  the  tablelands  of  the  Muiscas, 
where  they  were  led  to  believe  he  resided, 
they  followed  the  indications  of  the  next  idle 
rumor  and  sought  him  among  the  distant 
Omaguas  in  the  valleys  of  the  Caqueta  and 
the  Putumayo.  They  pushed  their  way 
203 


THE  QUEST  OF  EL  DORADO 

time  and  again  through  the  length  and  the 
breadth  of  the  inhospitable  montana  from 
Lake  Maracaibo  to  the  lower  rapids  of  the 
Huallaga,  and  explored  the  tributaries  of 
the  Amazon  and  the  Orinoco  from  the  An- 
des to  the  Rio  Negro  and  the  Carom,  and 
still  no  Gilded  King,  no  palaces  of  gold,  no 
precious  stones.  Never  since  their  time  has 
this  part  of  South  America  been  so  thor- 
oughly explored  and  never  has  every  nook 
and  corner  of  it  been  so  minutely  scruti- 
nized. 

But  the  golden,  man-devouring  phantom 
"whose  maw  was  never  satiated  with  the 
souls  of  heroes";  the  phantom,  "so  possible, 
so  probable  to  imaginations  which  were  yet 
reeling  before  the  actual  and  veritable  prodi- 
gies of  Peru,  Mexico,  and  the  East  Indies," 
still  lured  them  on  from  one  part  of  the 
continent  to  another.  The  failure  of  expe- 
dition after  expedition,  the  tragic  death  of 
thousands,  with  their  whitened  bones  strewn 
204 


From  Theodor  de  Dry's  "Collectiones  Perlgrinationum  in  Indian  Orientalem  et 

Occidentalem" 

SOME  OF  THE  STRANGE  ANIMALS  OF  THE  NEW  WORLD 


REASONS  FOR  BELIEF 

over  mountain  and  plain,  never  served  as  a 
warning  against  new  ventures,  and  never 
called  a  halt  to  the  wanton  sacrifice  of  life 
to  the  gilded  Minotaur.  It  is,  therefore,  not 
surprising  that  many  people  thought  of 
those  who  took  part  in  these  enterprises  what 
Oviedo,  describing  the  hardships  of  the  earli- 
est voyage  up  the  Meta,  writes  of  Alonso  de 
Herrera  and  his  companions,  "I  do  not  be- 
lieve that  any  of  those  who  took  part  in  this 
expedition  would  have  taken  so  much  trou- 
ble to  get  into  Paradise." 

There  was  at  the  time  of  the  conquest  of 
Peru  a  tradition  current  that  one  of  the 
younger  brothers  of  the  Inca  had,  with  a 
large  army,  carrying  with  it  untold  treas- 
ures, fled  to  the  region  to  the  east  of  the 
Andes  and  taken  possession  of  a  vast  terri- 
tory somewhere  between  the  Amazon  and 
the  Orinoco.  The  fortune-hunters  accepted 
without  question  the  truth  of  this  tradition, 
and  failure  to  locate  the  object  of  their 
207 


THE  QUEST  OF  EL  DORADO 

quest  on  the  uplands  of  New  Granada  or 
in  the  lowlands  at  the  foot  of  the  eastern 
Cordilleras,  far  from  indicating  that  they 
were  pursuing  a  chimera,  simply  proved 
that  they  had  to  seek  the  self-expatriated  In- 
cas  farther  eastward.  Thus  it  was  that  they 
suddenly  changed  their  field  of  operations 
from  the  mythical  Dorado  of  the  Omaguas 
to  the  equally  mythical  Dorado  of  Parime, 
nearly  a  thousand  miles  nearer  the  rising 
sun.  The  region  surrounding  Raleigh's  im- 
aginary lake  was  still  wholly  unknown  and 
here,  then,  near  the  headwaters  of  the  Ca- 
roni,  it  was  confidently  asserted,  the  long 
and  eagerly  sought  king  of  the  Golden  City 
was  at  last  to  be  found.  Even  as  late  as 
1775  the  governor  of  Spanish  Guiana  was 
induced  to  send  an  expedition  in  the  direc- 
tion of  the  reputed  Lake  Parime  in  quest 
of  El  Dorado.  Of  this  expedition  only  one 
man,  Don  Antonio  Solis,  returned  alive.  He 
is  interesting  as  being  probably  the  last 
208 


REASONS  FOR  BELIEF 

member  of  an  expedition  sent  out  under  gov- 
ernment auspices,  nearly  two  and  a  half  cen- 
turies after  the  story  of  El  Dorado  was  first 
given  currency  by  the  roving  Indian  at  Lat- 
acunga  on  the  plain  of  Quito,  a  story  which, 
according  to  Sou  they  in  his  "History  of 
Brazil,"  "cost  Spain  a  greater  expense  of 
life  and  treasure  than  all  her  conquests  in 
the  New  World."  2 

We  smile  at  what  we  are  pleased  to  con- 
sider the  folly  of  those  who  went  in  pursuit 
of  that  which  to  us  was  a  mere  will-o'-the- 
wisp,  and  are  disposed  to  characterize  them 
as  Hume,  in  his  "History  of  England,"  does 
Raleigh — as  "capable  of  the  most  extrava- 
gant credulity  or  the  most  impudent  impos- 
ture"— as  visionaries  who  were  "extremely 
defective  either  in  solid  understanding  or 
morals,  or  both."  3 

And,  as  we  read  of  "the  countless  expe- 

2  Vol.  I,  p.  3Q3,  London  (1822). 

3  Vol.  IV,  pp.  533-534,,  Boston  (1854). 

209 


THE  QUEST  OF  EL  DORADO 

ditions  of  the  Spaniards  in  pursuit  of  a 
phantom,  we  are  inclined  to  regard  them  as 
a  nation  of  fantastic  adventurers  of  the  type 
of  Don  Quixote.  But  we  forget  that  they 
were  confronted  with  a  world  of  marvels 
where  nothing  was  considered  impossible. 
The  reports  which  had  reached,  them  con- 
cerning El  Dorado  seemed  more  reliable 
than  were  those  which  led  Columbus  to  the 
discovery  of  the  New  World.  In  that  age 
of  illusions,  in  which  many  things  had  been 
realized  that  before  had  been  deemed  impos- 
sible, the  unbridled  imagination  wandered 
in  an  interminable  region  of  chimeras;  and, 
in  the  midst  of  privations  and  dangers,  men 
sustained  themselves  on  that  which  most  har- 
monized with  their  ideas,  or  most  flattered 
their  hopes.  The  unexpected  spectacle  of 
the  vast  treasures  found  in  the  temples  and 
palaces  of  the  Incas  inflamed  the  desires  and 
perverted  the  judgment  of  those  lucky  ad- 
venturers, who,  not  content  with  the  rich 
210 


Facsimile  signature  of  Friar  Caspar  Carvajal   ; 


REASONS  FOR  BELIEF 

fruits  of  their  victories,  promised  themselves 
to  multiply  them  by  extending  the  sphere  of 
their  conquests."  4 

And  we  forget,  also,  that  at  the  time  when 
Belalcazar  and  Orellana,  Von  Hutten,  and 
the  Quesadas  went  in  quest  of  El  Dorado 
only  a  small  part  of  the  New  World  had 
been  explored.  And  yet  in  this  small  part 
two  rich  and  powerful  empires  had  been  dis- 
covered. We  forget  that  Cortes  and  Pizarro, 
following  the  slight  indications  afforded  by 
small  quantities  of  gold  in  the  possession  of 
savages  on  the  coast,  were  led  to  engage  in 
those  famous  enterprises  which  made  them 
masters  of  the  great  empires  of  the  Monte- 
zumas  and  of  the  Children  of  the  Sun. 

And  what  more  natural  than  to  suppose 
that  in  the  unexplored  portions  of  the  West- 
ern Hemisphere  there  were  similar,  possibly 
even  greater,  empires?  If  a  second  Mexico 

4  See  the  author's  "Through  South  America's  South- 
land/' p.  360. 

213 


THE  QUEST  OF  EL  DORADO 

had  been  discovered  in  the  territory  of  the 
Omaguas  or  a  second  Peru  had  been  found 
in  the  region  surrounding  Lake  Parime, 
what  matter  would  there  have  been  to  the  El 
Doradoist  for  surprise?  None  whatever. 
Even  we  of  today  would  applaud  the  wis- 
dom of  those  whose  persistence  in  following 
the  indications  at  hand  was  ultimately  re- 
warded with  success.  For  nothing  was  as- 
serted of  Manoa  and  the  capital  of  the 
Omaguas  which  had  not  been  proved  to  be 
true  of  Mexico  and  Cuzco  or  which  had  not 
been  witnessed  by  "the  corporal  and  mortal 
eyes"  of  many  of  the  adventurers  who  took 
part  in  the  earlier  expeditions  in  search  of  El 
Dorado. 

Mexico  was  located  in  the  center  of  a  lake. 
Why  not  Manoa  ?  The  religion  of  the  Muis- 
cas  was  connected  with  a  sacred  lake.  Why 
not  that  of  Manoa?  It  was  avouched  that 
the  greater  part  of  the  vast  treasure  of  the 
Incas  had  been  secreted  by  the  priests  of 
214 


REASONS  FOR  BELIEF 

Peru  and  that  many  members  of  the  blood 
royal  had  sought  refuge  beyond  the  Andes, 
and  what  more  reasonable  than  to  suppose 
that  a  remnant  of  the  treasure  of  the  great 
Inca  dynasty  was  still  in  existence? 

No,  we  have  no  reason  to  plume  ourselves 
on  our  superior  knowledge,  when  this  knowl- 
edge has  been  acquired  at  the  expense  and 
the  labor  of  those  whom  we  are  now  wont  to 
regard  as  phantom-chasers  or  the  self -de- 
luded victims  of  a  credulous  fancy.  Had 
we  lived  in  their  day  "we  should  have  be- 
longed either  to  the  many  wise  men  who  be- 
lieved as  they  did,  or  to  the  many  foolish 
men  who  not  only  sneered  at  the  story  of  El 
Dorado  but  at  a  hundred  other  stories  which 
we  now  know  to  be  true." 


CHAPTER  XI 

MODERN  DORADOISTS 

IT  is  often  asserted  that  the  story  of  El 
Dorado  was  devised  by  the  wily  Indians  as 
a  means  of  getting  rid  of  the  Spanish  in- 
vaders or  to  lure  them  to  the  lands  of  other 
tribes  with  whom  they  were  at  war. 

"It  is  true,"  as  I  have  written  elsewhere,1 
"that  the  lust  of  gold  often  made  the  Span- 
iards the  dupes  of  the  Indians  who,  in  or- 
der to  get  rid  of  their  unwelcome  guests,  re- 
galed them  with  stories  of  powerful  cities 
and  exhaustless  supplies  of  the  precious 
metals  in  the  depths  of  the  tropical  forests 
and  in  lands  far  distant  from  their  own.  It 
was  thus  that  they  sent  the  Spaniards  on  a 

1  "Through  South  America's  Southland/'  pp.  361 
and  362.  New  York  (1916). 

216 


MODERN   DORADOISTS 

wild-goose  chase  after  the  Gran  Quivira,  a 
flourishing  empire  in  New  Mexico,  which, 
it  was  averred,  had  been  established  there  by 
one  of  the  heirs  of  Montezuma.  It  was  thus 
that  they  started  hosts  of  adventurers  in 
search  of  the  Gran  Paytiti,  somewhere  be- 
tween Peru  and  Brazil,  where,  it  was  said, 
the  Incas,  with  a  large  number  of  followers 
and  untold  treasures,  had  fled  after  the  con- 
quest of  Cuzco  by  Pizarro.  It  was  thus,  too, 
that  they  were  able  to  trick  the  most  distin- 
guished of  the  Conquistadores  into  organiz- 
ing expedition  after  expedition  to  scour  the 
whole  continent  from  the  Pacific  to  the  At- 
lantic and  from  the  Amazon  to  the  Carib- 
bean in  search  of  the  mythical  El  Dorado. 
This  illusory  being  of  fancy  was  at  first  de- 
clared by  the  Indians  to  be  a  Gilded  Man, 
but  in  the  course  of  years,  was,  in  the  imagi- 
nations of  the  eager  and  credulous  Spanish, 
transformed  into  a  city  and  then  into  a  coun- 
217 


THE  QUEST  OF  EL  DORADO 

try  whose  treasures  of  gold  were  beyond  the 
dreams  of  oriental  fable." 

But  even  granting  that  many,  if  not  most 
of  the  Doradoists  were  the  dupes  of  lying 
Indians  whose  tales  respecting  the  Gilded 
Man  "should  never  have  been  given  the 
slightest  credence,  we  must  remember  that  it 
was  the  assertion  of  an  Indian  which  enabled 
Balboa  to  make  his  epochal  discovery  of  the 
great  South  Sea.  It  was  an  Indian  who  told 
Pizarro  of  the  vast  nation  of  the  Incas  and 
of  the  fabulous  treasures  of  Cuzco.  It  was 
information  furnished  by  Indians,  regarding 
the  wealth  of  the  Aztecs  and  the  Muiscas, 
that  guided  Cortes  to  the  rich  capital  of 
Montezuma,  and  Quesada  to  the  opulent 
plateau  of  Cundinamarca."  2 

Again,  it  is  said  that  the  Spaniard,  igno- 
rant of  the  language  of  the  aborigines,  was 
led  to  look  for  gold  where  the  Indian  had 
told  him  there  was  red  earth.  Or  it  is  averred 

2  Op.  cit.,  p.  361. 

218 


MODERN  DORADOISTS 

that  the  Indian  was  himself  deceived  and 
promised  the  European  immense  deposits  of 
the  precious  metals  where  there  was  nothing 
but  mica-schist  or  sulphides  of  iron  and  cop- 
per. Or,  still  again,  it  is  declared  that  the 
extraordinary  episode  of  South  American 
history  known  as  the  quest  of  El  Dorado  is 
an  instance  of  one  of  those  mysterious  aber- 
rations of  the  human  mind  whose  origin  and 
continuance  can  be  explained  only  by  an 
expert  in  the  psychology  of  history. 

We  need  not,  however,  seek  for  any  such 
recondite  reasons  for  the  explanation  of  the 
facts  which  have  been  the  subject  matter  of 
the  preceding  pages.  Fortune-seekers  and 
adventurers  in  search  of  wealth  to  be  secured 
without  slow  and  monotonous  toil  have  ever 
existed  in  the  world  and  are  in  it  still,  en- 
gaged in  schemes  different  only  in  name 
from  that  which  so  captivated  the  minds  of 
men  two  and  three  centuries  ago.  And  they, 
too — all  of  them — have  their  Dorado  which 
219 


THE  QUEST  OF  EL  DORADO 

occasions  the  same  feverish  activity,  the 
same  intense  excitement,  the  same  eager 
desire  to  achieve  fame  and  fortune  as 
characterized  the  Conquistadores  in  their  fa- 
mous expeditions  in  quest  of  the  Gilded 
King. 

Sixty  years  ago  it  was  in  California, 
then  known  as  the  El  Dorado  of  the  West, 
and  thither  thousands  flocked  from  all  parts 
of  the  world  in  search  of  the  same  glittering 
metal  that  constituted  such  a  lure  for  the 
Spaniards  three  centuries  before.  Later  on, 
El  Dorado  was  transferred  to  the  frozen 
strands  of  the  Yukon,  and  icebound  Alaska 
witnessed  a  great  army  of  passionate  gold- 
hunters,  much  the  same  as  those  which  long 
generations  ago  had  pushed  their  way 
through  the  steaming  jungles  between  the 
Orinoco  and  the  Amazon.  Again,  El  Do- 
rado was  in  the  veldt  of  southern  Africa, 
where  the  Gilded  Man — or  was  it  the  Golden 
Calf? — appeared  under  the  form  of  the  rich 
220 


MODERN  DORADOISTS 

gold  nuggets  of  the  Rand  or  of  the  spar- 
kling gems  of  Kimberley.  For  others  still, 
El  Dorado  is  Wall  Street  or  the  Paris 
Bourse  or  Monte  Carlo — any  place  where 
the  acquisition  of  wealth  is  accompanied  by 
the  impelling  stimulus  of  hazard  and  excite- 
ment. 

Thus  it  is  that  El  Dorado,  who  was 
originally  a  Gilded  Chieftain  on  the  plateau 
of  New  Granada  or  in  the  forest  lakes  of 
the  Omaguas,  or  in  the  golden  palace  of 
Lake  Parime,  has  become  a  mere  synonym 
for  any  region  or  any  enterprise  that 
presents  opportunities  for  easily  acquired 
wealth.  And  thus,  in  its  last  analysis,  we 
have  all  the  history  and  all  the  psychology 
that  are  required  to  explain  what  to  many 
has  ever  been  an  enigma — the  strange  fasci- 
nation, for  thousands,  of  that  extraordinary 
ignis  fatuus  which  has  given  us  the  most  in- 
teresting and  the  most  romantic  episode  in 
the  conquest  of  tropical  America. 
221 


THE  QUEST  OF  EL  DORADO 

Whether  considered  as  an  Indian  chief- 
tain, a  city  of  vast  riches,  a  land  of  untold 
treasures  luring  countless  brave  men  to  an 
untimely  death,  El  Dorado  could,  in  the 
words  of  Adolph  Rette,  truthfully  declare: 

Je  suis  r Illusion,  la  Crainte,  la  Chimere; 
Je  suis  la  region  ou  regnent  lee  fantomes. 

It  cannot,  of  course,  be  denied  that  hidden 
treasure  has,  in  all  ages,  possessed  a  peculiar 
and  mysterious  attraction  not  afforded  by 
mine  prospecting  or  stock  speculating  and 
that  its  very  elusiveness  has  but  enhanced 
the  zest  of  the  seeker  of  fortune.  For  even 
today  the  most  staid  representatives  of  our 
unromantic  civilization  are  thrilled  by  the 
mere  mention  of  the  discovery  of  a  pot  of 
gold  coin  or  of  the  reported  location,  by  a 
New  England  fisherman  or  a  New  Jersey 
yokel,  of  one  of  Captain  Kidd's  long-buried 
chests  filled  with  pieces  of  eight. 

Who  has  not  heard  of  the  efforts  that 
222 


MODERN  DORADOISTS 

have  been  made  to  find  the  tomb  of  Alaric 
the  Goth,  which  is  reputed  to  hold  the  ac- 
cumulated treasure  of  Rome;  to  locate  the 
cave  in  which  Attila  the  Hun  is  said  to  have 
stored  the  loot  which  he  gathered  from  the 
richest  countries  of  Europe;  to  discover  the 
untold  wealth  buried  with  Genseric  the  Van- 
dal, after  he  had  sacked  the  most  opulent 
provinces  of  Italy?  Who  has  not  read  of 
the  attempts,  dating  from  the  time  of  the 
Spanish  conquest,  to  drain  Lake  Urcos  in 
Peru,  and  Lake  Guativita  in  Colombia, 
where  it  is  still  asserted  and  confidently  be- 
lieved that  there  are  countless  millions  of 
Inca  and  Muisca  treasure  in  the  form  of 
gold  and  precious  stones?  Who  is  ignorant 
of  the  numberless  expeditions  that  have,  for 
centuries  past,  been  fitted  out  to  recover  the 
treasure  of  sunken  galleons  among  the 
islands  of  the  West  Indies  or  along  the  coast 
of  the  Spanish  Main?  Who  is  not  aware 
of  the  frantic  search  that  has  been  made, 
223 


THE  QUEST  OF  EL  DORADO 

times  without  number,  to  secure  the  amassed 
treasures,  estimated  at  $19,000,000,  which 
are  buried  in  the  little  island  of  Cocos,  off 
the  coast  of  Costa  Rica;  to  get  possession 
of  the  vast  stores  of  gold  in  the  ships  sunk 
by  Sir  Francis  Drake  in  the  harbor  of  San 
Miguel,  among  the  Azores,  or  in  the  hold  of 
the  treasure  ship  of  the  Spanish  Armada, 
which  went  down  in  the  harbor  of  Tober- 
mory  in  Scotland  and  which,  almost  from 
that  day  to  the  present,  has  been  an  object 
of  search  by  the  treasure-mad  mortals  who 
have  brought  to  their  assistance  every  device 
from  a  simple  diving  outfit  to  the  latest  de- 
sign of  suction  dredge?  Who  has  not  been 
impressed  by  the  story  of  the  tragic  fate  of 
the  English  frigate  La  Lutrine,  which,  over 
a  century  ago,  was  wrecked  near  the  en- 
trance to  the  Zuyder  Zee,  with  more  than 
£1,000,000  aboard,  and  which  since  the  dis- 
aster has  engaged  and  still  engages  the  best 
engineering  skill  of  the  London  Lloyds,  who 
224 


MODERN  DORADOISTS 

have  never  ceased  to  regard  the  sunken  treas- 
ure ship  as  a  possible  asset?  And  who  has 
not  been  thrilled  by  the  still  more  tragic  and 
romantic  story  of  the  destruction,  in  1702, 
in  Vigo  Bay,  of  the  magnificent  Spanish 
plate  fleet,  "The  richest  flota  that  ever  came 
to  Europe,"  with  its  cargo  of  gold  ingots 
and  silver  bars,  its  fabulous  hoards  of  ducats, 
doubloons,  and  pieces  of  eight,  valued  at 
more  than  $100,000,000,  a  treasure  for 
whose  recovery  the  Spanish  nation  and  pri- 
vate corporations  have  for  more  than  two 
centuries  labored  and  still  labor  as  assidu- 
ously and  as  hopefully  as  ever  did  the  for- 
tune-hunters of  long  years  ago  labor  for  the 
location  of  the  ever-elusive  El  Dorado? 

Even  as  I  write  these  lines  it  is  announced 
that  the  professor  of  archaeology  in  one  of 
our  leading  universities  is  preparing  to  go  to 
Asia  Minor  to  dig  beneath  the  ruins  of  Sar- 
dis  for  the  long-lost  treasures  of  King  Croe- 
sus, who  was  reputed  to'  be  the  richest  man 
225 


THE  QUEST  OF  EL  DORADO 

of  antiquity  and  whose  name  has  for  ages 
been  synonymous  with  great  wealth.  The 
professor  in  question  has  already,  in  a  pre- 
liminary exploration,  unearthed  many  valu- 
able objects  in  the  former  capital  of  the 
famed  Lydian  monarch.  Among  them  are 
gold  rings  and  bracelets  and  beautiful  cups 
and  intaglios  of  crystal  and  carnelian. 

Among  the  vast  treasures  which  the  an- 
cient plutocrat  of  Asia  Minor  was  said  to 
possess  were  countless  statues — all  of  solid 
gold — of  gods  and  heroes,  which  adorned 
his  beautiful  capital.  They  recall  the  statues 
of  gold  which  Von  Hutten  and  his  compan- 
ions reported  as  actually  existing  in  the  capi- 
tal of  the  Omaguas — statues  and  stores  of 
gold  like  those  which  Sir  Walter  Raleigh 
was  sure  were  to  be  found  in  the  magnifi- 
cent capital  of  Manoa. 

The  surface  of  the  soil  on  which  the  old 
Lydian  capital  was  built  has,  we  are  assured, 
been  merely  scratched,  and  "there  is  every 
226 


MODERN  DORADOISTS 

reason  to  believe  that  deep  beneath  the  site  of 
ancient  Sardis  lie  stupendous  hidden  treas- 
ures of  wrought  gold  such  as  explorers  never 
found  before,  exceeding  by  far  the  vast 
wealth  which  Schliemann  actually  unearthed 
in  the  ruins  of  Troy" — wealth  which  greatly 
surpasses  in  amount  the  treasures  which 
greeted  the  delighted  eyes  of  the  Spanish 
Conquistadores  in  the  palaces  of  Cuzco  and 
in  the  treasure  chambers  of  the  Great  Chimu. 
There  is  a  Scotch  legend  of  one  Donald 
Claflin  who  rows  along  the  rock-girt  Cale- 
donian coast,  always  seeking,  never  finding, 
the  gold  that  lies  in  the  graves  of  pagan 
chiefs  and  kings.  This  legend  tells  the  tale 
of  the  treasure-hunter  and  epitomizes  all 
that  might  be  said  about  those  wondrous  ex- 
peditions that  went  in  quest  of  El  Dorado. 
The  romance  of  the  gold  hunt  is  something 
that  thrills  even  the  most  sedate  and  most 
matter-of-fact  of  men.  Goethe's  words — 
227 


THE  QUEST  OF  EL  DORADO 

Nach  Golde  drankt, 
Am  Golde  hangt 

Doch  Alles — 

may  be  adduced  to  show  the  potency  of  gold 
as  a  factor  in  human  endeavor,  but  they  only 
partially  disclose  the  mainspring  that  im- 
pelled the  Conquistadores — those  extraordi- 
nary men  "limitless  in  desire,  limitless  in  in- 
dustry, limitless  in  will" — to  essay  what  we 
now  know  was  as  unfeasible  as  an  attempt  to 
ascend  to  the  sun  or  the  stars. 

And,  be  it  remembered,  it  was  not  solely 
the  lust  of  gold  for  its  own  sake,  which,  in 
days  gone  by,  sent  the  blood  surging  through 
the  veins  of  the  apathetic  and  worldly-wise 
Germans  and  Englishmen,  as  well  as  of  the 
sentimental  and  romantic  Spaniards,  and 
led  them  to  adventure  fortune,  health,  and 
life  in  the  most  hazardous  enterprises;  but, 
over  and  above  the  desire  of  wealth,  there 
was  that  seductive  spirit  of  romance,  as  re- 
vealed in  the  "Palmerin  de  Oliva"  and 
228 


FACSIMILE   SIGNATURE  OP  FRIAR  CASPAR  CARVAJAL,   HISTORIAN 
.  OF  ORELLANA'S  GREAT  VOYAGE  OF  DISCOVERY 


FACSIMILE  SIGNATURE  OF  FRANCISCO  DB  ORELLANA 


MODERN  DORADOISTS 

"Amadis  of  Gaul" — that  love  of  glory, 
which  so  dominated  the  Spaniards  of  the 
conquest  from  the  proudest  adelantado  of 
noblest  birth  to  the  lowest  soldier  of  hum- 
blest origin. 

But  unlike  our  present  seekers  after 
buried  treasures,  the  adventurers  who  went 
in  quest  of  El  Dorado,  even  though  they 
failed  in  achieving  the  purpose  which  they 
had  in  view,  contributed  greatly  to  the  ad- 
vancement of  geographic  knowledge  and  to 
the  progress  of  civilization.  The  region 
bounded  by  the  Orinoco  and  the  Amazon, 
the  Andes,  and  the  Rio  Negro,  has  never 
since  the  conquest  been  so  carefully  explored 
as  it  was  by  the  men  who  went  in  search  of 
the  Gilded  King  and  the  golden  capital  of 
the  Omaguas.  They  traversed  time  and 
again  many  broad  stretches  of  territory  that 
have  never  since  their  time  been  visited  by 
a  single  European.  Like  the  old  alchem- 
ists, who  failed  in  their  quest  of  the  philoso- 
231 


THE  QUEST  OF  EL  DORADO 

pher's  stone,  but  who  by  their  experiments 
paved  the  way  for  the  science  of  modern 
chemistry,  the  treasure-seeking  adventurers, 
who  so  thoroughly  examined  the  northern 
half  of  the  South  American  continent,  acted 
as  the  advance  guard  of  civilization  in  a  re- 
gion that  would  otherwise  have  remained  a 
terra  incognita  until  our  own  day,  as  did 
vast  areas  to  the  south  of  the  Amazon  which 
were  left  untraversed  by  the  white  man  un- 
til visited  by  explorers  still  living.  They 
opened  up  to  the  colonist  and  the  missionary 
the  broad  savannas  and  woodlands  of  the 
east  of  the  great  Andean  chain  and  were 
thus  indirectly  instrumental  in  establishing 
those  flourishing  missions  which,  for  genera- 
tions, exerted  so  beneficent  an  influence  in 
civilizing  and  Christianizing  the  aborigines 
that  they  commanded  the  admiration  of  the 
world. 

And  yet  more.     If  we  still  have  some 
knowledge  of  the  manners  and  customs  of 
232 


MODERN  DORADOISTS 

certain  of  the  Indian  races,  now  extinct, 
that  formerly  inhabited  the  vast  territory 
drained  by  the  Amazon,  the  Orinoco,  and 
their  tributaries ;  if  we  can  still  form  a  true 
mental  picture  of  the  conditions  of  the  north- 
ern half  of  South  America,  as  it  was  at  the 
time  of  the  Conquest,  it  is,  thanks  to  those 
who  spent  so  many  years,  at  the  cost  of  so 
much  life  and  treasure,  in  the  pursuit  of  that 
strange  golden  phantom,  which,  under  the 
guise  of  a  gilded  king,  a  golden  city,  a  coun- 
try rich  in  precious  metals,  a  lake  with  an 
aureate  strand,  lured  on  generation  after 
generation  of  eager,  resolute  adventurers, 
and  which,  whether  king  or  city,  country  or 
lake,  holds  its  place  in  history  under  the 
name  of  El  Dorado. 


APPENDIX 

The  account  of  the  fortuitous  meeting 
of  the  three  distinguished  Conquistadores, 
Gonsalo  Ximenes  de  Quesada,  Nicholas 
Federmann  and  Sebastian  de  Belalcazar,  is 
so  remarkable  that  it  reads  like  a  chapter 
from  the  "Arabian  Nights."  All  three  of 
these  gallant  adventurers  were,  like  so  many 
of  their  contemporaries,  ardent  and  inde- 
fatigable treasure  hunters. 

Federmann,  before  his  singular  rencounter 
with  his  Spanish  rivals,  had  been  vainly 
seeking  the  fabulous  Casa  del  Sol — House 
of  the  Sun — which  was  said  to  be  located 
somewhere  east  of  the  Andes — presumably 
in  the  valley  of  the  Meta — and  which,  ac- 
cording to  a  report  then  current,  was  a  store- 
house of  immense  treasures  of  gold  and  pre- 
cious stones. 

235 


THE  QUEST  OF  EL  DORADO 

Quesada,  who,  like  his  illustrious  country- 
man, Hernando  Cortes,  was  a  man  of 
marked  literary  attainments  as  well  as  a  suc- 
cessful commander,  had  just  completed  the 
conquest  of  the  Chibchas  and  had  taken  pos- 
session of  all  the  treasures  which  he  had 
found  in  their  temples  and  elsewhere.  And 
like  the  diplomatic  and  chivalrous  Anda- 
lusian,  Belalcazar,  who  had  just  arrived 
from  distant  Quito,  in  search  of  El  Dorado, 
Quesada,  too,  although  at  a  later  period,  was 
destined  to  win  renown,  if  not  fortune,  as 
one  of  the  most  famous  of  the  long  list  of 
those  intrepid  men  who  risked  their  all  in 
the  futile  pursuit  of  the  Gilded  King. 

So  interesting  and  illuminating  a  side- 
light do  the  characters  and  motives,  jeal- 
ousies and  ambitions,  hardships,  achieve- 
ments and  disappointments  of  these  three 
eminent  Conquistadores,  whom  the  lust  of 
gold  and  conquest  had  so  strangely  brought 
together  on  the  plain  of  Bogota,  throw  on 
236 


APPENDIX 

the  whole'history  of  the  quest  of  El  Dorado, 
that  I  here  reproduce,  by  way  of  appendix, 
what  I  have  written  on  the  subject  in  my 
"Up  the  Orinoco  and  Down  the  Magda- 
lena."  1 

"Quesada  had  left  Santa  Marta  in  1536, 
having  under  his  command,  according  to 
Oviedo,  eight  hundred  men  and  one  hun- 
dred horses.  He  went  part  of  the  way  by 
land  and  part  by  the  Rio  Grande,  now 
known  as  the  Magdalena.  After  reaching 
the  Opon,  he  followed  that  river  as  far  as 
it  was  navigable,  and  eventually  made  his 
way  to  the  plateau  of  Bogota — the  land  of 
the  Chibchas. 

"His  march  was,  in  some  respects,  the 
most  difficult  and  remarkable  in  the  annals 
of  the  Conquest.  He  had  to  contend  against 
relentless  savages,  dismal  swamps  and  almost 
impenetrable  forests,  where  he  had  to  cut 
his  way  through  the  tangled  vines  and 

1  Chap.  X,  p.  294-299. 

237 


THE  QUEST  OF  EL  DORADO 

bushes  and  where  it  was  often  impossible  to 
make  more  than  a  league  a  day.  His  men 
were  decimated  by  disease  and  starvation. 
When  he  at  last  arrived  at  the  Valle  de 
Alcazares,  near  the  present  site  of  Bogota, 
he  could  count  but  one  hundred  infantry  and 
sixty  cavalry.  But  with  this  handful  of 
men  he  had  conquered  the  Chibcha  nation, 
numbering,  according  to  the  old  chroniclers, 
one  million  people  and  having  twenty  thou- 
sand soldiers  in  the  field.  Scarcely,  how- 
ever, was  his  campaign  against  the  aborig- 
ines successfully  terminated,  when  informa- 
tion was  conveyed  him  of  a  new  danger  in 
the  person  of  a  German  competitor,  who  had 
just  arrived  from  the  llanos. 

"Five  years  previously,  Federmann,  in 
the  service  of  the  Welsers,  had  left  Coro  in 
Venezuela,  with  four  hundred  well-armed 
and  well-provisioned  men.  After  wander- 
ing over  trackless  plains  and  through  dark 
and  almost  impenetrable  forests,  enduring 
238 


APPENDIX 

frightful  hardships  of  all  kinds,  he  finally 
got  word  of  the  Chibchas  and  of  their  treas- 
ures of  gold  and  precious  stones.  He  forth- 
with changed  his  route  and  crossed  the  east- 
ern Cordilleras,  where  the  traveler  Andre 
assures  us  it  is  now  absolutely  impossible  to 
pass. 

"Thus,  almost  before  Quesada  was  aware 
that  Federmann  was  in  the  country,  he  was 
constrained  by  policy  to  receive  him  and  his 
one  hundred  ragged  and  famished  followers 
—these  were  all  that  remained  of  his  gallant 
band — as  his  guests.  The  Spanish  Conquis- 
tador knew  that  the  German  leader  would 
put  in  a  claim  for  a  part  of  the  territory 
that  they  had  both  been  exploring,  and 
which,  until  then,  each  of  them  had  regarded 
as  his  own  by  right  of  conquest.  He  was 
then  naturally  eager  to  effect  a  settlement 
with  his  competitor  on  the  best  terms  pos- 
sible and  get  him  out  of  the  country  with  the 
least  possible  delay.  Federmann  agreed  to 
239 


THE  QUEST  OF  EL  DORADO 

renounce  all  his  claims  in  consideration  of 
his  receiving  himself  the  sum  of  ten  thou- 
sand pesos  and  of  having  his  soldiers  enjoy 
all  the  rights  of  discoverers  and  Conquista- 
dores  accorded  to  those  of  Quesada. 

"Scarcely,  however,  had  these  negotiations 
been  happily  terminated  when  another  and 
a  more  formidable  rival  appeared  on  the 
scene,  on  his  way  from  the  distant  South. 
This  was  Sebastian  de  Belalcazar,  the  fa- 
mous lieutenant  of  Francisco  Pizarro.  He 
was  then  governor  of  Quito  and  the  con- 
queror of  much  of  the  territory  now  included 
in  Ecuador  and  southern  Columbia.  Hear- 
ing casually  of  El  Dorado  and  of  the  mar- 
velous riches  this  ruler  was  reputed  to  pos- 
sess, the  Spanish  chieftain  lost  no  time  in  or- 
ganizing an  expedition  to  the  country  of 
gold  and  emeralds,  of  fertile  plains  and  de- 
lightful valleys.  Setting  out  with  the  as- 
surance of  an  early  and  easy  victory,  and 
of  soon  becoming  the  possessors  of  untold 
240 


APPENDIX 

wealth  and  all  the  enjoyment  that  wealth 
could  command,  the  soldiers,  in  quest  of  El 
Dorado,  exclaimed  with  unrestrained  enthu- 
siasm : 

"  'Nuestros  sean  su  oro  y  sus  placeres, 
Gocemos  de  ese  campo  y  ese  sol.' 2 

"But  anticipation  is  not  fruition.  This 
the  Spaniard  soon  learned  to  his  sorrow. 
Like  Quesada  and  Federmann  and  their  fol- 
lowers, Belalcazar  and  his  men  had  to  endure 
frightful  hardships  during  the  long  and 
painful  march  of  many  months  from  Quito 
to  the  plateau  of  Bogota.  According  to  Cas- 
tellanos,  who  wrote  while  many  of  these  ad- 
venturers were  living,  and  who  had  received 
from  them  directly  an  account  of  their 
privations  and  sufferings  and  the  countless 
obstacles  that  at  times  rendered  progress 
almost  impossible,  their  journeys  were 
made  through  mountains  and  districts  that 

2  'Ours  be  his  gold  and  his  pleasures., 
Let  us  enjoy  that  land,  that  sun/ 

241 


THE  QUEST  OF  EL  DORADO 

were  inaccessible  and  uninhabitable,  through 
gloomy  forests  and  dense,  tangled  under- 
brush; through  inhospitable  lands  and  dis- 
mal swamps,  where  there  was  neither  food 
nor  shelter  for  man  or  beast. 

"This  extraordinary  and  accidental  meet- 
ing of  the  three  Conquistadores,  coming 
from  such  great  distances,  from  three  differ- 
ent points  of  the  compass,  is  one  of  the  most 
interesting  episodes  in  the  history  of  the 
Conquest.  It  was  a  critical  moment  for  the 
Europeans.  If  they  had  failed  to  agree,  and 
had  turned  their  arms  against  one  another, 
those  who  would  have  escaped  alive  would 
have  been  at  the  mercy  of  the  Indians  who 
would  at  once  have  rallied  their  forces  to 
repel  the  invaders.  But,  fortunately,  wise 
councils  prevailed  and  a  clash  was  averted. 

"  'While   the   clergy   and   the   religious,' 

writes  Acosta,  'were  going  to  and  from  the 

different  camps  endeavoring  to  prevent  a 

rupture,  the  three  parties  of  Spaniards,  com- 

242 


APPENDIX 

ing  from  points  so  distant,  and  now  occupy- 
ing the  three  apices  of  a  triangle,  whose 
sides  measured  three  or  four  leagues,  pre- 
sented a  singular  spectacle.  Those  from 
Peru  were  clad  in  scarlet  cloth  and  silk  and 
wore  steel  helmets  and  costly  plumes.  Those 
from  Santa  Marta  had  cloaks,  linens  and 
caps  made  by  the  Indians.  Those,  however, 
from  Venezuela,  like  refugees  from  Robin- 
son Crusoe's  island,  were  covered  with  the 
skins  of  bears,  leopards,  tigers  and  deer. 
Having  journeyed  more  than  thirteen  hun- 
dred leagues  through  uninhabited  lands, 
they  had  experienced  the  most  cruel  hard- 
ships. They  arrived  poor,  naked  and  re- 
duced to  one-fourth  of  their  original  number. 
"  'The  three  chiefs,'  continues  Acosta, 
'were  among  the  most  distinguished  men 
that  ever  came  to  America.  Belalcazar,  son 
of  a  woodman  of  Extremadura,  attained  by 
his  talents  and  valor  the  reputation  of  being 
one  of  the  most  celebrated  Conquistadores 
243 


THE  QUEST  OF  EL  DORADO 

of  South  America  and  was  endowed  in  a 
degree  far  above  the  other  two  with  politi- 
cal tact  and  observing  genius.  As  soon  as 
he  became  aware  of  the  agreement  entered 
into  between  Quesada  and  Federmann,  he 
nobly  waived  his  rights,  and  declined  to  ac- 
cept the  sum  which  Quesada  offered  him. 
He  stipulated  only  that  his  soldiers  should 
not  be  prevented  from  returning  to  Peru, 
when  they  might  desire  to  do  so,  or  when 
Pizarro  should  demand  them,  and  that  Cap- 
tain Juan  Cabrera  should  return  to  found  a 
town  in  Neiva,  a  territory  which,  along  with 
Timana,  was  to  be  under  the  government  of 
Popayan,  which  it  was  his  intention  to  solicit 
from  the  Emperor.  In  the  meantime  he 
agreed  to  accompany  Quesada  to  Spain.' 

"The  three  went  to  Spain  together,  as  had 
been  arranged,  each  of  them  confident  of 
receiving  from  the  Spanish  monarch  a  re- 
ward commensurate  with  his  labors  and  serv- 
ices to  the  Crown.  Each  one  aspired  to  the 
244 


APPENDIX 

governorship  of  new  Granada  and  used  all 
his  influence  to  secure  the  coveted  prize. 

"The  net  result  of  their  efforts  was  a  sad 
experience  of  the  vanity  of  human  wishes. 
All  were  disappointed  in  their  expectations. 
The  guerdon  all  so  eagerly  strove  for  was 
awarded  to  another  who  had  taken  no  part 
in  the  conquest  that  had  rendered  the  three 
aspirants  to  royal  favor  so  famous. 

"Only  Belalcazar  received  any  recogni- 
tion whatever.  He  was  made  adelantado  of 
Popayan  and  the  surrounding  territory.  As 
for  Quesada  and  Federmann  they  fell  into 
disfavor.  The  latter  soon  disappeared  from 
public  view  entirely,  but  long  afterwards 
Quesada  was  able  to  return  to  the  land 
where  he  had  won  so  many  laurels.  And  it 
was  fitting  that,  after  his  death,  his  remains 
should  repose  in  the  noble  cathedral  that 
adorns  the  capital  of  which  he  was  the 
founder. 

"In  adventure  and  achievement,  the  three 
245 


THE  QUEST  OF  EL  DORADO 

Conquistadores  above  mentioned  take  rank 
with  Cortes,  Pizarro  and  Orellana.  Given 
a  Homer,  their  wanderings  and  deeds  would 
afford  themes  for  three  Odysseys  of  intense 
and  abiding  interest.  Given  even  an  Er- 
cilla,  we  should  have  a  literary  monument, 
which,  in  romantic  episode  and  dramatic 
effect,  would  eclipse  the  Araucana,  the  near- 
est approach  to  an  epic  that  South  America 
has  yet  produced." 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

List  of  the  more  important  works  cited  in  this 
volume. 
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BRY,  THEODOR  DE.     Collectiones  Perigrinationum 

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furti  ad  Moenum  (1590-1634). 
CARVAJAL,  FR.  GASPAR.     Descubrimiento  del  Rio 

de  las  Amazonas  segun  la  Relacion  hasta  ahora 

Inedita  de  Fr.   Gaspar  Carvajal,  por  Toribio 

Medina.      Sevilla    (1894). 
CASTELLANOS,     JUAN     DE.     Elejias    de    Varones 

Ilustres  de  Indias.     Madrid  (1850). 
CASTE  LLANOS,    JUAN    DE.     Historia    del    Nuevo 

Reino  de  Granada,  publicada  por  primera  vez 

por  D.  Antonio  Paz  y  Melia.     Madrid  (1886). 
CENTENERA,  MARTIN  DEL  BARCO.     La  Argentina. 

Buenos  Aires  (1836). 
COLLJN,   MICHEL.     Nievwe  vverelt.      Amsterdam 


CRUZ,  FR.  LAUREANO   DE  LA.     Nuevo  Descubri- 
247 


THE  QUEST  OF  EL  DORADO 

miento   del  Rio   del  Maranon  Llamado   de  las 

Amazonas.     Madrid  (1900). 
EDWARDS,    EDWARD.     The    Life    of    Sir    Walter 

Raleigh.     London  (1868). 
FRESLE,  JUAN  RODRIGUEZ.     Conquista  i  Descub- 

rimiento  de  Granada  de  las  Indias  Occidentales 

del  Mar  Oceano  i  Fundacion  de  la  Ciudad  de 

Santa  Fe  de  Bogata.     Bogota  (1859). 
GOMARA,  FRANCISCO  LOPEZ  DE.     Historia  de  las 

Indias.     Madrid    (1877). 

GOTTFRIEDT,     JoHAN     LuDWIG.        NeWC     Welt     Vnd 

Americanische  Historien.  Francfurt  am 
Meyn  (1622). 

GUMILLA,  JOSE.  Historia  Natural,  Civil  y 
Geografica  de  las  Naciones  Situadas  en  las 
Riveras  del  Rio  Orinoco.  Barcelona  (1882). 

HUMBERT,  JULES.  L'Occupation  Allemande  du 
Venezuela  au  XVI  Siecle.  Paris  (1905). 

HERRERA,  ANTONIO  DE.  Historia  General  de  los 
Hechos  de  los  Castellanos  en  las  Islas  y  Tierra 
Firme  del  Mar  Oceano.  Madrid  (1726-1730). 

HUMBOLDT,  ALEXANDER  VON.  Personal  Narra- 
tive of  Travels  to  the  Equinoctial  Regions  of 
America.  London  (1907). 

ORTIGUERA,  TORIBIO  DE.  Jornada  del  Rio  Mara- 
non. Madrid  (1909). 

OVIEDO  Y  BANGS,  JOSE  DE.     Historia  de  la  Con- 

248 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

quista  y  Poblacion  de  la  Provincia  de  Vene- 
zuela. Madrid  (1885). 

OVIEDO  Y  VALDES,  GONZALO  FERNANDO  DE.  His- 
toria  General  y  Natural  de  las  Indias,  Islas  y 
Tierra  Firme  del  Mar  Oceano.  Madrid 
J  (1851-1855). 

PIEDRAHITA,  LUCAS  FERNANDEZ.  Historia  Gen- 
eral de  las  Conquistas  del  Nuevo  Reino  de 
Granada.  Bogata  (1881). 

RALEIGH,  SIR  WALTER.  The  Discovery  of  the 
Large,  Rich  and  Beautiful  Empire  of  Guiana 
with  a  Relation  of  the  Great  and  Golden  City 
of  Manoa,  which  the  Spaniards  call  El  Dorado, 
etc.,  performed  in  the  year  1595.  Pub.  by  the 
Hakluyt  Society,  London  (1848). 

SALINAS,  DIEGO  DE  CORDOVA.  Cronica  de  la  re- 
ligiosisima  provincia  de  los  Doce  Aposteles  del 
Peru  de  la  Orden  de  N.  P.  S.  Francisco  de  la 
regular  observancia.  Lima  (1651). 

SIMON,  FRAY  PEDRO.  Noticias  Historiales  de  las 
Conquistas  de  Tierra  Firme  en  las  Indias  Occi- 
dentales.  Bogota  (1882-1892). 

SOUTHEY,  ROBERT.  History  of  Brazil.  London 
(1822). 

TREVES,  FREDERICK.  The  Cradle  of  the  Deep. 
London  (1908). 

VASQUEZ,    BACHILLER    FRANCISCO.     Relacion    de 

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todo  lo  que  Sucedio  en  la  Jornada  de  Omagua 
y  Dorado  Hecha  por  el  Gobernador  Pedro  de 
Orsua.     Madrid   (1881). 
VEGA,   GARCILASO   DE  LA.     Historia  General   del 

Peru.     Madrid  (1722). 

ZAHM,  J.  A.  (H.  J.  MOZANS).  Up  the  Orinoco 
and  Down  the  Magdalena.  New  York 
(1910). 

Along  the  Andes  and  Down  the  Amazon. 
New  York  (1911). 

Through     South     America's      Southland. 
New  York  (1916). 

ZARATE,  AUGUSTIN  DE.  Historia  del  Descubri- 
miento  y  Conquista  de  la  Provincia  del  Peru. 
Madrid  (1906). 

ZERDA,  LIBORIO.  El  Dorado,  Estudio  Historico 
Etnografico  y  Arqueologico  de  los  Chibchas 
Habitantes  de  la  Antigua  Cundinamarca.  Bo- 
gata  (1883). 


INDEX 


Africa,   gold   in,   220 

Aguirre,  Lope  de,  76,  79, 
202 

Alaric  the  Goth,  treasure 
of,  223 

Alaska,  gold  in,  220 

Albujar,  Juan  Martin  de, 
86 

Alfinger,  Ambrose,  56 

Amazon  River,  discovery 

of,  43,  48 

Dorado,  search  on,  202 
passage  of  Aguirre  on, 
76,79 

Andes,  mountains,  Dora- 
do search  in  the, 
38,  202 

Pizarro    expedition    in 
the,  38 

Ants  as  food,  60 

Archives  of  Spain  and 
Peru,  3 

Asia  Minor,  buried  treas- 
ure in,  226,  227 


Atahualpa,  9,  37 

Attila  the  Hun,  treasure 
of,  223 

Aztec  treasures,  discov- 
ery of,  31,  218 

Balboa,  218 

Belalcazar,  Sebastian  de, 
2,  9,  14,  35,  202, 
213,  243,  244 
in  Bogota,  21,  32 
meeting  with  Quesada, 

17,  32,  235,  240 
Bembo,  card.,  letter  to,  26 
Berrio,  Antonio  de,  2,  109 
captured    by    Raleigh, 

155,  156 
expedition  under,  114, 

202 

Blaeuw,  maps  of,  193 
Bogota,     Dorado     search 
in,  13,  17,  21,  25, 
32 
Quesada  in,  59,  237 


251 


INDEX 


Books,  list  of,  247,  250 
Brieva,       Domingo       de, 
Fray,  134,  137 

Cabrera,  Juan,  244 
California,  gold  in,  220 
Canela,  Dorado  search  in, 

26,  27,  52,  202 
Indian  customs  in,  27- 

29 

Pizarro  in,  26,  27,  202 
Quesada  in,  52 
Carib  Indians,  85,  131 
Carvajal,   Gaspar   de,   5, 

49 

Casa  del  Sol,  6 
Castellanos,    Juan    de,    4 

18,     21,     90,     93, 

105 

Cecil,  Sir  Robert,  146 
Centenera,      Martin     del 

Barco,  198 
Chachapoyas,    expedition 

from,  79 

Chaves,  Nuflo  de,  expedi- 
tion   under,     138, 

139 
Chibchas,     conquest     of, 

236,  238 


Chibchas,  treasure  of,  31, 
239 

Chigoe,   133 

Children  of  the  Sun,  197, 
213 

Cinnamon,    land    of,    26, 
27,  36,  48 

Civilization       of       South 
America,  232 

Claflin,    Donald,    legend 
,of,  227 

Cocos       island,       buried 
treasure  at,  224 

Colombia,  Dorado  search 
in,  52 

Conquistadores,    explora- 
tions of,  7,  8,  202- 
204,  213,  229 
Spanish     accounts     of, 
144 

Coro,    expedition    organ- 
ized from,  55,  56 

Cortes,  213 

Courage  of  Pizarro  expe- 
dition, 47,  48 

Croesus,     King,     treasure 
of,  225,  226 

Cundinamarca,      Belalca- 
zar  in,  25,  202 


252 


INDEX 


Cundinamarca,      Dorado,      El  Dorado,  belief  in,  190, 


search  in,  25,  32, 
35,  202 
Cuzco,  treasures  of,  218 

De  Bry,  location  of  Ma- 
noa  by,  193 

De  Saet,  map  by,  193 

Depons,  map  of,  194 

Desert,  marches  of  Span- 
iards through,  84 

De  Vera,  Domingo,  121, 

122 

expedition  under,  12G* 
127 

Disease  outbreaks  on  Do- 
rado expeditions, 
60,  63,  85,  97,  98, 
101,  103,  104,  131 

Don  Juan,  cacique  of 
Guatavita,  13 

Earthquakes,  41 

East  Indies,  treasure  in, 

204 
El  Dorado,  accounts   of, 

3-7,17-21,26,144 
advantages  of  conquest 

of,  185 

253 


201,  217 
failures  to  find,  49,  59, 

102,      105,      106, 

133,      137,      176, 

204,  207 
Indian    reports    of,    9, 

17,28-32,57,  120, 

209,   216,  217 
location  of,  25,  32,  35, 

36,    70,    71,    HO, 

113,  120 
map   location   of,    193, 

194 

of  Parime,  208 
origin  of,  13,  14,25,26 
popularity     of     search 

for,  81,  82,  85,  93, 

122,      125,      126, 

146,    222 
results   of   search   for, 

229 
search  for,  1,  2,  4,  202- 

204 
Welser   expeditions  to, 

55,  56,  57 
Elegias       de       Varones 

Ilustres      de      In- 

dias,"  4,   10 


INDEX 


English  attack  on  Span- 
iards, 152,  155 
English   expeditions,   ob- 
jects of,  140-145 
Enim,   197 
Explorations  of  Aguirre, 

76,  79 
Belalcazar,  25,  26,  32- 

36 

Berrio,  116,  119 
of  the  Marafiones,  76, 

79 

'Pizarro,  38-47 
Quesada,  52,  55 
Spanish      conquistado- 
res,  2,   7,   8,   204, 
213,  229 

Von  Hutten,  57,  59,  63, 
64 


Federmann,     Nicolas,    6, 

17,  32,  238,  239 
meeting  with  Quesada, 

235 
settlement  of  claims  of, 

239,  240 
Financial  loss  of  Quesa- 


da 
104 


expedition, 


Financial  support  to  De 
Vera      expedition, 
122,  125,  126 
of  Silva  expedition,  82 

Food  shortage  of  Berrio 

expedition,  131 
of   Pizarro   expedition, 

41,  42,  44,  45 
of      Quesada      expedi- 
tions, 52,  97 
of  Von  Hutten  expedi- 
tion, 60 

Forest  j  ungle,  marches 
through,  41,  52, 
58,  202,  237 

Fortune-seekers,  219-221 

Franciscan  Lay  Broth- 
ers, voyage  of, 
134,  137,  138 

Fresle,  Juan  Rodriquez, 
13,  17,  21 

Genseric  the  Vandal, 
treasure  of,  223 

German  Dorado  expedi- 
tions, 55,  56,  238, 
239 

Gilded    Cacique,   27,   28, 


29 


254 


INDEX 


Gilded  King,  accounts  of , 

3-7,  17-21,26,144 

belief     in,     190,     201, 

217 

Indian    reports    of,    9, 
17,  28-32,  57,  120, 
209,  216,  217 
location  of,  25,  32,  35, 
36,    70,    71,    HO, 
113,   120 
results   of   search   for, 

229 
search  for,  1,  2,  4,  202- 

204 

Gold  in  Alaska,  220 
in  California,  220 
in  Guiana,  173,  174 
in  Manoa,   166,   169 
search   for,   6,   21,  22, 

56,  219,  220,  228 
Gomara,   48 
Gran  Moxo,  197 

empire  of,  198,  199 
people  of,  200 
Gran  Quivira,  217 
Great  Paru,  197 
Great  Paytiti,  197,  217 
Guatavita,  lake,  drainage 
of,  22 


Guatavita,    lake,     Indian 

ceremony    at,    1 3, 

14,  22,  25 

treasure  in,  21,  223 

Guiana,     advantages     of 

conquest  of,  185 
failure  of  English  con- 
quest of,  186,  189 
Raleigh's      chart      of, 

173,  190 

treasure    accounts     of, 
146,  165,  180,  183 
Gumilla,  25 

Hardships  of  Belalcazar 
expedition,  241, 
242 

of  Berrio  expedition, 
116 

of  Pizarro  expedition, 
38,  41,  44-47 

of  Quesada  expedi- 
tions, 52,  55,  58, 
59,  97-104,  237, 
238 

of  Silva  expedition,  83, 
84,  85,  86 

of  Von  Hutten  expedi- 
tion, 58,  60,  63 


255 


INDEX 


Herrera,  Alonzo   de,   89, 

207 
"Historia  del  Nuevo  Rei- 

no    de    Granada/' 

4,   105 
Hohermuth,   George,   56, 

89 

House  of  the  Sun,  235 
Humboldt,  18,  21,  193 

Imaginary       empire       in 
South       American 
forest,  197,  207 
Incas,  flight  of  the,  207, 
215,  217 

treasure  of  the,  31, 
207,  210,  215, 
217,  218,  223 

empire,     discovery     of, 

31,  210,  218 

Indian  empires  in  South 
America,  31,  210, 
213,  214,  218 

friendship  for  English, 
155,  156 

hostility  to  explorers, 
52,  65,  66,  73,  85, 
101,  103,  116, 
131,  132,  202 


Indian  races,  records  of 

extinct,  233 
population  on  Amazon, 

73,  74 

reports  on  Manoa,  165 

reports  of  El  Dorado, 

9,    17,    28-32,    57, 

120,      209,      216, 

217 

reports  on  South  Amer- 
ican empires,  31, 
218 

purpose  of,  216,  217 
Insect     diet     in     tropics, 

60 
Insects,  poisonous,  133 

La  Fragua,  58 

La  Lutrine,  treasure  sunk 

with,  224,  225 
Limpias,  Pedro  de,  56,  66 

Macatoa,  city  of,  59,  63 
Machiparo,  Indian  popu- 
lation of,  73,  74 
search  for  Dorado  in, 

73,  74 

Manoa,    accounts    of,    2, 
144,  166,  169,  214 


256 


INDEX 


Manoa,     Indian     reports 

of,  116,  119-121 
search   for,    116,    119, 

121,  156,- 159 
maps      locating,      190, 
193,  194 

Map  locations  of  El  Do- 
rado, 190,  193, 
194 

Mar  Eldorado,  193 

Maranones,  explorations 
of  the,  76,  79 

Martines,  Juan,  account 
of  Manoa,  165, 
166,  169 

M  e  d  r  a  n  o  ,  Francisco, 
death  of,  104,  105 

Mexico,      discovery      of, 

218 
treasure  in,  31,  204 

Montezuma,  empire  of, 
213,  218 

Motives  of  Raleigh  expe- 
dition, 143-145 

Muiscas,  4,  203,  214 
treasure  of  the,  223 

Mutineers  in  Ursua  expe- 
dition, 75,  76, 
79 


New  Estremadura,  expe- 
dition to,  81,  82, 
83 

New  Granada,  Dorado 
search  in,  17,  202 

"Noticias  Historiales,"  3 

Nuestra  Senora,  58 

Omaguas,  2,  50,  203 
baUle  wilh  the,  65,  66 
city  of,  64,  65,  69,  70 
land  of,  search  for  Do- 
rado in,  64,  70,  71, 
72,  81 

treasure  of  the,  64,  65 
Ordaz,  Eiego  de,  6,  89 
Crellana,  Francisco  de,  2, 

43,  44,  202,  213 
Orinoco,    Berrio    expedi- 
tion up,  128,  131 
Kaleigh  expedition  up, 

159-164 
delta,     navigation     of, 

160,  163 

Oviedo  v  Valdes,  Gonza- 
lo  F.,  26,  27 


Papamene,      arrival      of 
Quesada  in,  59 


257 


INDEX 


Parime,  lake,  190,  214 

Peru,  treasure  in,  31, 
204 

Piedrahita,  Lucas,  18,  21, 
35 

Pizarro,  Francisco,  9> 
197,  213* 

Pizarro,  Gonzalo,   2,  26, 

202 
expedition    under,    37, 

38 
results     of     expedition 

under,  48,  49 

return     of     expedition 

under,  44-47 

Popayan,  arrival  of  Que- 

sada  in,  59 

Belalcazar    made    gov- 
ernor of,  245 

Popularity  of  Dorado 
quest,  81,  82,  85, 
93,  122,  125,  126, 
146 

Prairie  fires,  97 

Privateering  of  Raleigh 
expedition,  147 

Proveda,  Martin  de,  ex- 
pedition under, 
79-81,  202 


Quarica,  palace  of,  64,  65 

Quesada,  Ximenes   de,  2, 

4,  13,  17,  32 
expedition    under,    90, 

93,  202,  213 
meeting   with   Belalca- 
zar, 235,  239,  241 

Quesada,  Fernan  Perez 
de,  expedition  un- 
der, 51,  52,  202, 
213 

Quito,  Pizarro  expedition 
in,  46,  47 

Rainy    season    in    South 
America,    41,    45, 
46,  52,  58,  60,  97, 
98,  101,   127 
Raleigh,  Sir  Walter,  2 
expedition  under,  140 
imprisonment  of,  183 
return  to  England  of, 

176,   179 

second    expedition    un- 
der, 183-189 

Reading    list    on     South 
America,    247-250 
Reptile    diet    of    Pizarro 
expedition,   45 


258 


INDEX 


Salt,  effect  of  lack  of,  46, 
98 

San  Jose  de  Oruno,  119, 
127 

San  Joseph,  capture  of, 
152,  155 

San  Juan  de  los  Llanos, 
58,  80,  94 

San  Pedro,  construction 
of,  42,  43 

Sanson,  map  of,  193 

Santo  Tome  de  Guiana, 
foundation  o  f , 
119,  128 

Sedeno,  Antonio,  6 

Sardis,  buried  treasure 
in,  225,  226 

Scotland,  treasure  ship 
sunk  off,  224 

Ship  building  on  Ama- 
zon, 42,  43 

Siecha,  lake,  treasure  in, 
25  (note) 

Silva,  Pedro  de,  expedi- 
tion under,  81, 
82,  83,  85,  86, 
202 

Simon,  Pedro,  3,  18,  21 

Solis,  Antonio,  208 


South  America,  Spanish 
exploration  of,  2, 
7,8,204,213,229 

South  Sea,  discovery  of, 
218 

Spanish  Bibliophiles,  so- 
ciety of,  5 

Spanish  exploration  in 
South  America,  2, 
7,8,  204,213,229 

Spanish  plate  fleet,  225 

Street  of  the  Silver- 
smiths, 198 

Surville,  map  of,  193 

Swamps,       marches 
through,  84 

Territory      claimed      by 

Quesada,  87-89 
by      three      explorers, 

239-241 

Texeria,  Pedro,  137 
Toledo,  Fray,  Andres  de 

137 
Treasure,     discovery     of 

lost,  222,  223 
in  Asia  Minor,  226,  227 
in  Lake  Guatavita,  21, 
22,  223 


INDEX 


Treasure,  in  Lake  Urcos, 

223 
in    Mexico    and    Peru, 

31,  204 
Indian    reports    of,    9, 

17,  29,  31,  57,  59, 

64,     65,     69,     89, 

114,   115 

of  Alaric  the  Goth,  223 
of  Attila,  the  Hun,  223 
of  Cuzco,  218 
of   Genseric   the   Van- 
dal, 223 
of    Gran    Moxo,    197- 

199 
of  the  Incas,  31,  207, 

210,      215,      217, 

218,  223 

of  the  Muiscas,  223 
of    the    Omaguas,    64, 

65 
of    Sardis,    225,    226, 

227 
Welser    expeditions    in 

search  of,  55,  56, 

238,  239 
Treasure     ships,     search 

for    sunken,    223, 

224,  225 


Trinidad,  arrival  of  Ra- 
leigh in,  147,  148 
privations  in,  127,  128 
medical      practice      in, 
132,  133 

Uapes  Indians,  63,  80 
Urcos,  lake,  treasure  in, 

223 

Ursua,  Pedro  de,  2,  202 
death  of,  74,  75 
expedition  under,  72 

Vaca,  Cabeza  de,  198 
Vasquez,  Francisco,  5,  75 
Vega,  Garcillaso  de  la,  45 
Venezuela,  expedition  or- 
ganized in,  55 

Dorado  search  in,  202 
Von    Hutten,    Philip,    2, 
89,  202,  213 

death  of,  66 

expedition  under,  55 

Wealth,  acquisition  of, 
219,  220,  221 

Welser  expeditions  in 
search  of  treas- 
ure, 55,  56,  238 


260 


INDEX 


Western  passage  to  In- 
dies, 144 

Whiddon,  mission  of, 
148 

White  Sea  of  the  Manoas, 
194 

Wilderness,  Dorado 
search  in,  84,  202, 
203 


Women  in  Dorado  expe- 
dition, 94,  127 

Yellow  fever,  132 
Yukon,  gold  in,  220 

Zarate,  37,  45 
Zuyder  Zee,  treasure  ship 
sunk  in,  224 


(l) 


FOLLOWING    THE    GONQUISTADORES 
Through  South  America's  Southland 

By  J.  A.  ZAHM,  A.  M.,  Ph.  D.  (H.  J.  Mozans).  With 
65  illustrations.  8vo.,  cloth,  gilt  top,  uncut  edges, 
$3.75  net. 

"We  regard  Dr.  Zahm's  three  volumes  as  the  most  valuable  COH- 
tribution  which  has  been  made  to  a  history  of  the  South  American 
republics."— The  Catholic  Historical  Review,  Washington,  D.  C. 

"The  three  volumes  constitute  a  trilogy  in  which  the  salient  and 
most  interesting  features  of  South  America — the  land  and  the  people 
— are  portrayed.  It  is  hardly  necessary  to  say  that  the  work  as  a 
whole  is  unique.  It  stands  quite  by  itself,  having  no  peer,  no  equal 
in  the  class  of  literature  to  which  it  belongs." — Records  of  the  Ameri- 
can Catholic  Historical  Society,  Philadelphia,  Pa. 

"By  establishing  sympathetic  relations  between  the  United  States 
and  the  South  American  Republics,  Father  Zahm's  book  is  a  notable 
achievement."— La  Union,  Santiago,  Chile. 

"No  one  knows  South  America  better  than  Dr.  Zahm,  and  no 
one  is  better  equipped  to  write  about  the  southern  continent." — 
The  Christian  Work. 

"Original  in  material,  enriched  with  historical  and  romantic  as- 
sociations of  the  Conquistadores,  fairly  studded  with  marvels  and 
anecdotes  taken  probably  from  the  unpublished  manuscripts  of 
Jesuit  pioneers,  Dr.  Zahm's  work  has  unique  value  as  a  contribution 
to  the  as  yet  largely  unwritten  history  of  South  America." — The 
Literary  Digest,  New  York  City. 

"Dr.  Zahm  writes  with  a  zest  that  is  contagious.  All  the  readers 
of  his  book  will  want  to  travel  in  his  footsteps." — The  New  York 
World. 

"A  book  of  extraordinary  interest  by  one  who  knows  his  subject 
thoroughly."— The  Independent,  New  York  City. 

"Dwelling  on  the  history,  the  romance,  and  the  present-day 
status  of  Brazil,  the  Argentine,  Chile,  Paraguay  and  Uruguay,  it  is 
a  vivid  picture  of  the  'A.  B.  C.'  countries  brought  well  up  to  date, 
and  including  just  the  detail  that  is  calculated  to  interest  Americans, 
particularly  at  the  present  time." — The  Review  of  Reviews,  New  York 
City. 

"Father  Zahm  writes  with  a  background  of  historical  knowledge 
and  a  wealth  of  picturesque  detail.  His  very  evident  enjoyment  of 
the  trip  is  contagious;  his  vivid  descriptions  give  you  pictures  of 
this  extravagantly  beautifulnew  land  which  he  tells  about,  and  fill 
you  with  a  desire  to  visit  it  yourself." —  The  Kansas  City  Star. 

"It  is  a  study  in  new  century  political  economics  and  new  world 
exploitation,  as  well  as  a  bright  and  buoyant  narrative  of  a  10,000 
mile  tropical  journey." — The  North  American,  Philadelphia. 

D.   APPLETON   AND   COMPANY,    NEW  YORK 


FOLLOWING    THE    CONQUISTADORES 

Up  the  Orinoco  and   Down  the  Magdalena 

By  H.  J.  MOZANS,  A.M.,  Ph.D.  (J.  A.  Zahm.) 
Illustrated.  8vo,  cloth,  gilt  top,  uncut  edges.  Price 
$3.75  net. 

"His  pages  breathe  the  poetry  of  travel,  the  romance  of  Sir 
John  Mandeville,  tempered  by  the  moderation  of  scientific  research. 
This  is  a  very  model  of  a  travel  book,  and  the  author  is  to  be 
congratulated  on  a  result  that  will  insure  a  wide  public  for  the 
promised  sequel." — The  World,  London,  England. 

"The  book  is  beyond  question  the  most  valuable  of  all  the 
books  on  South  America  which  has  appeared.  It  is  as  interesting 
as  a  novel,  full  of  entertaining  anecdote  and  of  real  value  to 
the  student.  It  contains  some  maps  and  excellent  illustrations  from 
photographs." — The  Call,  San  Francisco,  Cal. 

"This  is  a  remarkably  interesting  book,  leading  us  through  a 
region  little  known  to  the  majority  of  English  travelers,  and 
possessing,  in  consequence,  that  charm  of  novelty  in  which  works 
of  the  same  description  are  occasionally  deficient." — The  Standard, 
London,  England. 

"The  reader  will  find  this  trip  with  the  author,  "Up  the 
Orinoco  and  Down  the  Magdalena,"  as  agreeable  and  instructive 
as  a  personally  conducted  visit  to  the  heart  of  the  Andes." — 
Evening  Transcript,  Boston,  Mass. 

"This  volume,  remarkable  alike  for  its  instructive  qualities 
and  the  excellent  composition,  will  open  a  vista  of  delight  to 
the  reader  who  relishes  travel." — The  News,  Charleston,  S.  C. 

"Dr.  Mozans  sees  the  country  with  the  trained  and  experienced 
eye  of  a  world  traveler  and  with  the  well  stocked  mind  of  the 
lover  of  literature.  The  past  is  linked  with  the  present,  the 
unknown  with  the  known,  and  poetically  appreciated  in  a  way 
that  is  most  delightful." — The  Tribune,  Chicago,  111. 

"The  author,  a  traveler  of  many  years  of  experience,  who 
has  explored  strange  corners  of  the  globe  in  every  zone,  com- 
bines with  accurate  observation  and  a  facile  power  of  description 
a  knowledge  of  history  that  enables  him  to  illuminate  his  work 
with  something  of  the  romance  that  attaches  to  the  tales  of  the 
conquistadores  in  whose  trail  he  followed  on  this  journey.  The 
resulting  book  is  one  that  gives  the  reader  a  completely  new  set  of 
impressions  and  ideas  concerning  Venezuela  and  Colombia  and  the 
great  rivers  that  water  these  still  unsettled  lands." — The  Times  Star, 
Cincinnati,  Ohio. 

"Not  since  the  appearance  of  Humboldt's  "Personal  Narrative 
of  Travels  in  the  Equinoctial  Regions  of  America"  has  the  fertile 
and  romantic  region  of  Tierra  Firma — the  scene  of  the  exploits 
of  some  of  this  most  illustrious  of  the  Conquistadores — been  so 
fully  and  so  vividly  described  as  by  Doctor  Mozans  in  his  in- 
structive and  fascinating  volume  "Up  the  Orinoco  and  Down  the 
Magdalena." — Bulletin  of  the  Pan-American  Union. 

D.  APPLETON   AND   COMPANY,   NEW   YORK 


FOLLOWING    THE    CONQUISTADQRES 

Along  the  Andes   and   Down   the   Amazon 

By  H.  J.  MOZANS,  A.M.,  Ph.D.  With  an  Intro- 
duction by  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT.  Illustrated. 
8vo,  cloth,  gilt  top,  uncut  edges.  Price  $3.75  net. 


"It  was  a  great  project  and  a  grand  journey,  but  we  do  not 
recall  any  writer  who  could  describe  it  so  delightfully  as  Dr.  Mozans. 
He  has  not  only  an  irresistible  literary  charm,  but  he  is  so  saturated 
with  knowledge  of  what  he  writes  about  that  all  he  writes  has  an 
irresistible  interest." — The  Herald,  Glasgow,  Scotland. 

"Readers  of  Dr.  Mozans'  book  have  been  impressed  by  the 
remarkable,  almost  amazing,  erudition  shown  in  it.  It  has  also  a 
modernity  that  is  unusual  in  scholarly  persons.  Dr.  Mozans 
seems  to  have  been  everywhere  and  studied  everything.  His 
especial  interest  in  life  has  been  thoroughly  to  acquaint  himself 
with  the  history,  antiquities  and  people,  past  and  present,  of 
northern  South  America." — The  Literary  Digest,  New  York  City. 

"Dr.  Mozans  writes  English  after  our  own  style,  and  has  a 
point  of  view  half  philosophical  and  half  poetic.  He  is  highly 
sensitive  to  the  mystery  of  the  dead  civilizations  of  the  Andean 
plateaux,  as  well  as  to  the  abounding  life  of  the  modern  States, 
and  the  book  generally  is  the  pleasantest  account  of  South  America 
we  have  encountered  for  a  considerable  time." — The  Standard, 
London,  England. 

"To  read  his  book  is  not  only  to  travel  with  him  to  strange 
places  but  also  to  be  steeped  in  good  literature." — The  Record- 
Herald,  Chicago,  111. 

"Great  learning  is  often  allied  with  great  simplicity.  It  is  so 
In  the  case  of  Dr.  Mozans.  He  is  bubbling  over  with  information 
about  the  achievements  of  the  Spanish  conquistadores  and  the 
subsequent  history  of  the  lands  over  which  they  established  their 
sway." — The  Field,  London,  England. 

"Whether  Dr.  Mozans'  volume  is  resorted  to  for  solid  in- 
formation or  mere  entertainment  it  will  well  repay  the  reading." — 
The  New  York  Times. 

"A  book  which  every  traveler  to  South  America,  especially 
every  traveler  to  the  west  coast  of  the  continent,  will  wish  to 
have  in  his  handbag." — Bulletin  of  the  Pan-American  Union. 

"This  is  a  delightful  book  from  every  standpoint." — Ex-Pres- 
ident Roosevelt,  in  the  Introduction  to  Dr.  Mozans'  book. 

"Like  the  well-known  works  of  Waterton  and  Humboldt  on 
South  America,  the  two  books  by  Dr.  Mozans  are  sure  to  have  a 
permanent  value  and  to  be  recognized  as  soon  as  known,  as 
authorities  on  the  countless  subjects  discussed  in  their  illuminating 
pages  with  such  fairness  and  scholarship." — The  Freeman's  Journal, 
New  York  City. 

D.  APPLETON   AND    COMPANY,    NEW    /ORK 


A  TIMELY  VOLUME  OF  UNUSUAL  INTEREST 

Woman  in  Science 

By  H.  J.  MOZANS,  A.  M.,  Ph.  D.,  Frontispiece,  8vo, 
cloth.     Price  $2.75  net. 

"A  historical  survey  of  the  higher  education  of  women  that  is 
almost  monumental  in  design.  .  .  .  The  conclusion  of  the  admir- 
able survey  is  inspiring  for  its  breadth  and  idealism." 

— The  Review  of  Reviews,  New  York  City. 

"All  who  are  interested  in  the  progress  and  advancement  of 
women  will  be  inspired  by  this  exhaustive  treatment  by  Dr. 

Mozans'"  —  The  Literary  Digest,  New  York  City. 

"Dr.  H.  J.  Mozans's  present  volume,  'Women  in  Science,'  is  assur- 
edly no  labor  of  the  market.  Its  pages  are  the  outcome  of  long 
days  at  the  University  of  Athens,  of  months  at  Bologna,  Padua  and 
Pavia,  of  years  of  delving  into  the  recorded  lives  of  the  great 
women  of  civilization.  .  .  .  But  he  closes  his  scholarly  and  most 
courteous  volume  with  a  freshened  hope." 

— The    Times,   New    York  City. 

"The  book  marks  an  epoch  in  the  struggle  of  women  for  recog- 
nition in  the  educational  world  and  is  worthy  of  a  place  in  the  library 
of  every  cultivated  man  and  woman  in  the  land." 

— The  Evening  Telegram,  Portland,  Oregon. 

"It  is  a  much  more  refreshing  story  than  the  story  of  the  militant 
struggle  to  vote.    It  wakens  not  mere  sympathy  but  deep  respect." 
— The  Knickerbocker  Press,  Albany,  N.  Y. 

"The  present  book  is  emphatically  timely,  dealing  as  it  does  with 
the  right  of  woman  to  the  opportunity  to  develop  her  life  precisely  as 
the  man  has  the  right  to  develop  his.  .  .  .  This  book  is  a  store- 
house of  facts  and  arguments  for  all  who  in  this  struggle  take  the 

-The  Outlook,  New  York  City. 

"Writers  and  orators  who  deal  with  feminism  in  its  chameleonic 
aspects  will  want  to  read  Dr.  H.  J.  Mozans's  'Woman  in  Science.'  " 

— The  Public  Ledger,  Philadelphia,  Penna. 

"After  outlining  woman's  capacity  for  scientific  pursuits,  the 
book  takes  up,  step  by  step,  her  achievements  in  all  the  departments 
of  pure  science  from  the  earliest  times  to  the  present.  An  inspira- 
tion for  those  interested  in  the  cause  of  women."' 

— Current    Opinion,  New  York  City. 

"For  those  directly  interested  in  the  cause  of  woman  it  is  a  foun- 
tain  of  inspiration."  _r/^  ^^^  Atlanta>  Ga 

"The  book  will  be  especially  valuable  to  those  who  are  directly 
interested  in  the  'Cause  of  Woman,'  and  who  wish  argumentative 
ammunition  for  the  fray."  _Sf  paul  Dispafchf  St  paul  pioneer  press 

"He  has  written  a  wonderful  book  which  every  woman  who  under- 
takes to  forward  the  feminist  cause  should  read.  .  .  .  The  book 
Dr.  Mozans  has  written  about  them  has  the  romantic  interest  of  a 
novel  and  the  inspiration  of  a  battle  hymn!" 

— The  Journal,  Madison,  Wisconsin. 

D.   APPLETON   AND   COMPANY,    NEW   YORK 


BY  THE  AUTHOR  OF  "WOMAN  IN  SCIENCE" 

Great  Inspirers 

By  J.  A.  ZAHM,  Ph.D.,  LL.D.  (H.  J.Mozans). 

8vo.  Cloth,  $1.50  Net. 

"A  book  which  holds  the  reader  spellbound  from  the  first  page 
to  the  last,  both  by  its  style  and  by  its  treatment  of  its  engaging 
subjects.  .  .  It 'is  a  volume  of  rare  delights  of  which  it  would 
be  ungrateful  to  speak  without  enthusiasm." — New  York  Tribune. 

"The  eternal  womanly  is  the  keynote  of  this  able  work  and  the 
author  writes  with  brilliant  literary  style  and  the  finished  tech- 
nique of  the  real  scholar." — The  Buffalo  Courier. 

"An  inspiring  book,  companionable,  full  of  spirituality  and 
comprehension  of  human  nature." — Fresno,  Cal.,  Republican. 

"Dr.  Zahm's  book  on  every  page  indicates  historical,  theological 
and  literary  scholarship  of  the  first  class.  It  is  thoroughly  human 
and  readable." — The  Outlook. 

"A  fine  book  and  most  interesting." — Baltimore  Sun. 

"A  tribute  to  womanhood." — Philadelphia  Public  Ledger. 

"As  essay,  history  or  criticism,  the  book  is  of  decided  value." — 
The  Continent. 

"It  will  be  read  with  interest  on  account  of  its  subject  matter, 
and  with  pleasure  on  account  of  its  style." — Ave  Maria. 

"The  book  is  very  interesting." — Catholic  World. 

"Dr.  Zahm's  eminence  as  a  Dante  commentator  makes  the  sec- 
ond part  specially  valuable." — New  York  Evening  Post. 

"History  and  legend,  modern  research  and  venerable  tradition 
.  .  .  .  are  finely  combined  in  these  twin  sketches  of  great 
events  in  literature — the  production  of  the  Latin  Vulgate  Old 
Testament  before  the  DarV  Ages,  and  the  creation  of  the  immor- 
tal allegory  of  the  hereafter  at  the  dawn  of  the  Renaissance." — 
The  Philadelphia  North  American. 


D.  APPLETON    AND    COMPANY,    NEW   YORK 

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